About
Janis Lander is an artist, author and lecturer. Her art is represented in collections in Australia and overseas, including Germany, France and U.S.A. She has held solo and group shows since 1989.
Commissions
Janis accepts commissions of all kinds including figurative works, portraits, and landscapes. She works in oil on canvas, alla prima works on paper in charcoal and pastel, and a body of work in printmaking, using a variety of intaglio etching methods.
Landscapes
Janis has made many artists’ trips to studios in the arid zone in far western New South Wales. Works from these trips have been hung in the Plein Air Parliamentary Prize in NSW Parliament House Sydney, and the Broken Hill Regional Art Prize. Her solo exhibition in 2006 showed land-based works in pastels, charcoals, oil and etchings from the arid zone; she has created a series of portraits of the other artists who work in that part of the world, which have hung in group exhibitions in Federal Parliament House, Canberra, and NSW Parliament House, Sydney.
Portrait commissions
Janis requires several sittings during which she makes a series of studies. These works on paper may be used as the basis for an oil painting made in the studio, or they may be commissioned as completed pastel paintings from life. Portraits by Janis Lander have hung in national award exhibitions: the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the Archibald Salon des Refuses, the Portia Geach Memorial Award, The WA Black Swan Prize; and numerous group exhibitions.
Meditation Paintings
These works reflect a long involvement with yoga. Since 1997 Janis has taught Vision/Art Workshops, using a combination of meditation techniques and art practices. (See the website Vision/Art Workshops for details of the workshops).
working in the remote desert studios
Research & Monograph
In 2012 Janis was awarded a PhD in Art Education, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. Her doctoral thesis is titled “A Discursive Study of Art and Education in Contemporary Spiritual Systems”, available online. Her research is in the domain of spiritual art as a visual language referencing a variety of practices aimed at developing consciousness.
A monograph titled “Spiritual Art & Art Education” was published by Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Group, in the USA December 2013 (UK January 2014), – part of the Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies series. Available on the Routledge website, and also from Amazon.com. A paperback edition is available from Amazon AU.
http://www.routledge.com/books/series/RAVS/
Lecture Series and Book
Janis teaches a sessional lecture series – “Art and Philosophy of the Spirit” at the Centre for Continuing Education, Sydney University. (See the CCE website). The 2020-2021 course dates in March/ April , and July/August were cancelled due to Covid. Check for future dates at CCE.
New South Wales Parliament House, Sydney,
https://cce.sydney.edu.au/course/APSP
Janis published a book based on this lecture series in March 2020, with Atropos Press, titled Art and Philosophy of the Spirit. Copies can be ordered from the usual outlets, and online from Amazon and Book Depository
https://www.bookdepository.com/Art-Philosophy-Spirit-Janis-Lander/9781940813332
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1940813336/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
Other
Janis is a freelance editor of academic dissertations and theses. From 2003-2012 Janis was Contributing Editor of the arts journal The College Voice, for the University of New South Wales ARC website. She has extensive experience as a curator of exhibitions, writing catalogues, and served on the executive team for the independent group Portrait Artists Australia 2002-2014. She was Contributing Editor of The Artists’ Book (pub. 2012). She sits on the Woollahra Public Art Advisory Committee.