Janice Newman
Janice Newman
Biography and Artist Statement
Janice Newman is an artist and art educator from Rhode Island who moved to Sarasota, FL in 2016. Her undergraduate degree was in Art Education and her Masters degree from Lesley College was as a Specialist in Integrating the Arts, including dance, music, visual arts, poetry and theater. She taught for 40 years in both public and private schools, as well as colleges including the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design.
Janice has served as a past President of the Association for Childhood Education International in RI, and on many boards and committees promoting the arts. She is the recent, past President of Women Contemporary Artists, a regional organization of 150+ professional artists in Florida. She is also a member of the National League of American Pen Women and the Petticoat Painters, one of the oldest continually exhibiting groups of women artists in the U.S.
As a painter, she is best known for capturing light and color in both natural and figurative forms. Her oil painting “Carnival Lights: The Zipper” was awarded First Place in the Women Contemporary Artists 2018 annual exhibit. She was awarded another First Place for her acrylic painting “Morning Mist” in 2023. She has shown her work in galleries and museums throughout New England and in Florida. It is in many private collections, and she has work that has been acquired by both Rhode Island School of Design and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
“Find the beauty.” I have always been a keen observer. If you know me now, it’s hard to believe I barely spoke as a child. But, I watched. I vividly remember taking in everything around me from a very young age, the sights, the sounds, the energy of life everywhere. As an artist today, I do the same, experiencing, exploring and imagining, until WHAM, I am stopped in my tracks by...something, an image, a moment in time. It might be the way the light just hit those rocks, or the glitter of colors dancing on the water, the intricate textures of someone’s hair or the intimate tilt of two heads engaged in conversation. It’s not really about the subject matter itself. I look for the beauty in the moment that makes me catch my breath. And, then, I paint it.
When I am creating art, I completely lose myself in the experience of playing with the art media, trying to control it but also letting it control me. I celebrate the unique qualities that different materials can achieve. I want my work to evoke the sense of wonder and delight that was so much a part of the process of creating it.”