A Solo Exhibition

For this body of work, artist Janet Lucroy starts with a base of individually painted elements that are scanned and manipulated in 2D image processing software. These images are further altered/reimagined, composed and rendered within 3D software. Lucroy thinks and works in “series”, grouping pieces by inspiration, art historical references and/or thoughts and feelings evoked.

Evocation series:
“This series was inspired by a wide range of artistic influences: Zen landscape ink painting, Japanese woodblock artist Katsushika Hokusai, surrealist Remedios Varo, and Romantic landscape painter Casper David Friedrich.

I’ve found over the years I keep returning to landscape in some form or another, usually quite abstracted. With this series I decided to be more direct with it, particularly in my use of color — with the net impression intended to be simultaneously general and specific, evocative of a broad composite memory/idea/dream of landscape. Individually painted, scanned, and photographed elements go through multiple passes of 2D image processing and 3D computer graphics texturing to create the final work.”

Murmur series:
“My Murmur pieces start with organic forms found in nature. As with my Evocation series, individually painted, scanned, and photographed elements go through multiple passes of 2D image processing and 3D computer graphics texturing to create the final work.

My artistic influences for this body of work lean mostly on Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism, but also Northern Renaissance painters such as Van Eyck in terms of attention to detail to specific textures as well as some of the approach to color.”

Coalescence series:
“The imagery in this series is intended to loosely connote landscape, with allusions to both microscopic and macroscopic spaces, blurring the line between the two. My inspiration for this work comes predominantly from organic/biomorphic abstraction in general, the Surrealist movement in specific.”

Chance series:
“The approach to color for this series of work is inspired largely from the diaphanous layered color fields of Mark Rothko and Agnes Martin, but relies on organic instead of geometric shapes, created in a Surrealistic approach where artists would create random uncontrolled paint splashes or “accidents” as entry points into their work. Instead of starting with a specific composition in mind, for this series I let the exploration of painted organic shapes as they relate by chance to procedurally generated lines guide the compositions.”

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Janet Lucroy is a visual artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned a BA in Fine Arts Studio with a minor in Art History, Phi Beta Kappa, from Indiana University Bloomington and an MFA in Art and Technology with a focus on digital lighting from The Ohio State University. Following grad school, she worked in the film industry at Pixar Animation Studios as a Lighting Artist on A Bug’s Life and Toy Story 2, Directing Lighting Artist on Monsters Inc., and Director of Photography on the Academy-Award winning film The Incredibles. Though working in computer animation was a long-held dream Lucroy was thrilled to actualize, she always knew at some point she would want to return to her personal art practice. After close to a decade at Pixar, she went back to the intimacy and immediacy of creating her own work, where she interweaves digital and physical processes, including drawing, painting, collage, scanography, photography, computer programming, 3D graphics and digital painting/compositing/effects.
Lucroy’s work has been exhibited widely in California and throughout the U.S., and in 2021 she had work included in exhibitions at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art as well as the Santa Paula Art Museum. She’s been an Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute, as well as an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts.