Frank Janzen

Biography

Frank was born in Manitoba, Canada but was raised on the west coast of British Columbia. After completing only one year at the University of B.C., he went traveling through Europe where he met his future wife, Marie. Coming back to Canada he started back to university but soon became restless, so they traveled and lived in Australia for five years. After a daughter, Christy, was born they came back to Canada and he worked in various jobs, finally ending up on Vancouver Island, (where a son, Shaun, was born), working as a finishing carpenter and hanging garage doors. At age 47 he was persuaded to go back to university.

He graduated from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada with a B.F.A. (Honors) in 1994 and from the Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, NM in 1996. Tamarind is the only facility in the world that teaches collaborative printing in lithography done by the traditional methods of working on limestone or aluminum plates. Their output of master printers is very small, usually one to two per year. Since that time he has worked as an artist in prints and paintings, given workshops on printmaking and has collaborated with artists to edition their prints.

Frank is a Tamarind Master Printer who is currently the resident master printer at Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts. Located at St. Andrew’s Mission on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, he works with major and emerging artists to realize their work in the medium of printmaking.

Statement

My work is mainly about color and spatial relationships that provoke some form of visceral reaction, initially in myself and, hopefully, in the viewer. In the exploration of various materials in both painting and printmaking I strive to achieve simplicity in order to allow the colors and the shapes alone, along with expanses of negative space, to evoke a dialogue.

What that dialogue contains is entirely incumbent upon the voluntary participation of the viewer, that is, whether to engage or disengage. For myself it is an ongoing dialogue that began as a child in the 1950’s with the onset of the Abstract Expressionists and their non-linear perspective of color-field relationships.

In the end, they are what they are. From the time they were created to the moment they enter the public realm they are their own entities and will always remain so.

Links

www.crowsshadow.org

Events

DISPARATE FUSION: The Art of Colleen Sargen and Frank Janzen | February 27 - May 15, 2009
Artists' reception Friday, February 27 from 4 - 7 PM on the 3rd floor of Whitman College's Memorial Building

Contact

Frank Janzen
Box 226 110 N. Broad Street
Weston, OR 97886

Home 541 566 0998
Work 541 276 3954

fjanzen@crowsshadow.org