Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition of abstract paintings by Canadian artist Janna Watson. This is the artist’s third one-person exhibition with the gallery who has represented her since 2017.

In Janna Watson’s latest series Seven Perfect Syllables, the artist uses her titles as an entryway to interpret her visual abstractions. In her words, “The titles are as malleable as the materials that I use to paint. Each piece focuses on the middle line of the standard haiku and humors the measurement of syllables.”

Like a traditional haiku, Watson’s paintings suggest subtle observations of quotidian life and nature: the way the air feels, the glow of a firefly, or the angle of a river. The appeal of this poetic form is its intention to express much and suggest more in the fewest possible words. Janna Watson’s compositions and color choices are both careful and spontaneous, each gesture evoking an unstated emotional response. The paintings are generous smeary passages of vivid color with swooping buttery paint strokes, and calligraphic marks floating on fields of saturated color. They are not spare, but they have an implied economy of language, each gesture gathered towards the others with an unseen gravitational force coalescing into a graceful equilibrium.

Janna Watson holds an honors degree in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design. Watson has exhibited extensively across Canada, the United States and internationally in more than 20 solo exhibitions. Watson’s paintings have been acquired by notable public collections including the Toronto collections of TD Bank, CIBC, Telus, the Ritz-Carlton, oNi oNE, the Soho Metropolitan Hotel, Saks Fifth Avenue, and a large public commission for the lobby of AURA, Canada’s tallest residential building. Watson lives and works in Toronto.

Please contact Kenise Barnes, director: [email protected] with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.