Janly Jaggard

Bio

Janly Jaggard is a British artist living in Staunton, Virginia. Now working in vitreous enamels and as a painter, she earned a BFA in Ceramics in the early 70’s in England. Soon after, Elizabeth Turrell introduced her to enamel, and guided this newfound interest until Jaggard moved to USA in the early 1990’s. An art teacher and practicing artist, she has participated as both an enameler and a painter in regional, national and international exhibitions. She returned to studies in Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts, UK, completing her MA in 2016. This intense experience led to the reassurance about why she paints and how the medium reciprocates influence to the enamel work.

Statement

I want my work to be honest. I want the viewer to sense my presence at the easel or bench as I deliberate, and to question the validity of the conversation I have with the work as it evolves. My purpose is simple: to develop a masterful use of materials. My quest is that each creation generates a life of its own.

My work begins from many sources, most of which are objective. I prefer either oil or acrylic paint, with their adjustable fluidity and deliberate mixing to an exactness of hue, or vitreous enamel, typically sifting onto the copper plate in planes of transparent or opaque color. I find that as I shift from one to the other, the divergent methodologies of these mediums inform me as cross-references. I typically begin a work from some connection I have made with observed color combinations, or the way light reveals space against deep shadow in the landscape or on a table of randomly associated objects. A piece so inspired develops out of a quickly ensuing dialogue back and forth between it and me; it evolves and becomes an independent idea. The story that is formed goes on for as long as it takes. For a work in enamel on copper, I continually revisit a surface and its materiality until the image can breath independently and tells me that I can let go. This typically means at least 20 firings over hours or months. Sometimes it never arrives at all. That is the driving force that keeps me painting and enamelling.

I have come to an understanding that a sense of uncertainty can provide a way to investigate and give form to those things for which we have no language.