Janis lander

The next four years were spent at Sydney University and painting took a back seat. Lander graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in English Literature and minoring in Art History and Theory. During that period, the Power Institute was established on campus with Donald Brooke, Bernard Smith, Terry Smith, and Virginia Spate researching and lecturing. The Power Research Library (now the John Schaffer Fine Arts Library) and the Tin Sheds Gallery (run by Guy Warren) were established. With the advent of Two Decades of American Painting showing at the AGNSW and NGV in 1968, the stage was set for Australian artists to explore the many faces of Modernism—Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Op Art, Colour Field Painting, Action Painting. For emerging artists, it was an intoxicating time.

While Lander’s work has always reflected what is going on in her life from decade to decade, there are ongoing themes and concepts. Landscape has been a recurrent subject, changing according to where she was living—coastal landscapes in the sixties; Californian beach scenes in the seventies; Sydney harbour scenes in the nineties; and from 2006 onwards, the outback.

She has made annual artists’ trips to the arid zone in far western New South Wales and 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, and twice in the Australian Embassy in Washington D.C. with the national organisation Portrait Artists Australia. Other portraits have hung in the Archibald Salon, the Portia Geach Memorial Award, the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, and The Black Swan Prize.

Lander works primarily in oil on canvas or linen, and she has produced a large body of work on paper, in pastel and charcoal, and in intaglio etching. Her landscapes and her portraits have hung in selected exhibitions in Australia and travelled overseas. Her art is represented in collections in Australia and overseas, including Germany, France, and the U.S.A. on themes around portraits, meditation practices, and landscapes.