ABOUT — Janis Provisor

Janis Provisor was born in Brooklyn, NY and currently resides in NYC. She received her Masters Degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in California. Janis Provisor, an accomplished artist has had a vast career in the arts, showing in galleries all over the world as well as having her work in many museum collections.

In 1993, Janis, along with her husband and son, left New York for an adventure in Asia, they ended up staying for nine years. During this time, Provisor’s career took a turn, she and her husband developed Fort Street Studio, a company designing, manufacturing, and selling hand-knotted silk carpets.

At the same time, Janis began designing and making jewelry as another creative outlet. In Asia, with a cornucopia of stones and possibilities, Janis embarked on this avocation. Then in 2005, Provisor entered into a partnership with Debi Wisch to create Janis Provisor Jewelry.

Below is a list of selected collections where Janis Provisor’s artwork can be found.

Buffalo AKG Museum, Buffalo, NY
Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen, Germany
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Oakland Art Museum, CA
Ft. Wayne Museum of Art, IN
Richmond Art Museum, Richmond, VA
Rivendell Collection, NY
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA
The Jane Vorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY
Tucson Art Museum, AZ
San Diego Museum of Art, CA
Yale Gallery of Art, CT
Smith College Museum of Art, MA
National Gallery, DC
Library of Congress
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, CA
Mumok-Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria
Hessel Museum of Art, NY
RISD Museum, RI

ARTIST STATEMENT

I’m not interested in my work as a message delivery system, but I am interested in subject matter and emotion rendered through abstraction…and at times a recognizable figure or object presence. Perhaps, it’s like, I live my life super-aware, with my antennae recording the world and politics, in which we all live; while also living in a dream state of my own internal experience. It’s this liminal presence that I’m looking for in my work. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to be in the moment when I am actually painting. It’s a pas de deux between me and the canvas that occurs quickly, although not before a lot of premeditation/prep work goes on in my head beforehand. As I approach the piece, I often draw with my hands…a kind of physical movement that helps me see where I want to go. Then I begin.

BRIEF HISTORY

1989 and 1993 were pivotal years for me. In 1989, Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press, invited me to go to China to make prints in the traditional Chinese woodblock style, and I had the trip of a lifetime. In 1993, my husband, Brad Davis, and son, Alec Davis who was then 6 years old, and I, through contacts made in 1989, were able to spend a year in China and Hong Kong painting, exploring, living. Thus, began a new adventure of design, primarily in designing and co-founding a hand-knotted silk carpet company, Fort Street Studio, and also making jewelry as Janis Provisor Jewelry. All along, I continued to make art, both painting and making prints. In the early 2000s, I took a hiatus from painting, beginning again in 2013, during a summer spent in Normandy. I’ve worked continually since then, in studios in Hong Kong, Italy, Brooklyn and now in Connecticut. Painting now is my sole focus, which, rather than a look back, is my present and future. This is a great time of life to be making art!