Susan Janow, If I Were A Queen (Clip), 2022. Single-channel video, duration: 6 minutes, 24 seconds. [ID: GIF of two digitally rendered crowns, one pastel purple and the other pastel pink, rotating on a sage green background with a grid of different colored square outlines.]
Creative Growth is pleased to announce Susan Janow’s first museum solo exhibition at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Susan Janow: If I Were A Queen is titled after a site-specific installation created by the artist in honor of the exhibition, which Janow co-curated, designed and will introduce in person the week of the opening.
Susan Janow: If I Were a Queen
September 3–December 4, 2022
Artist Meet and Greet: September 3
Fort Wayne Museum of Art
311 E Main Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802
I have been coming to Creative Growth for 19 years. I love Creative Growth because everyone here is my friend. All the staff loves me.
I work in grids, it’s one of my favorite things to do. The squares are like a quilt. I use my imagination. The colors I choose are red, blue, green, brown, orange and purple.
I go with the flow. I get mesmerized. I want people to feel happy when they see my work."
—Susan Janow
Susan Janow (b. 1980) has been developing her multimedia practice at Creative Growth for nearly 20 years. Janow is widely recognized for her video work, which she writes, directs, and often stars in. Her seminal work QUESTIONS? positions Janow facing the camera and looking ahead silently, while her own voiceover shifts between standard interview-like questions and personal inquiries. The viewer is left to reflect not only on their own responses, but the enigmatic motivations of the enquirer herself. QUESTIONS and its sequel ANSWERS are in the permanent collection at the Brooklyn Museum, the first films by an artist with intellectual and developmental disabilities to enter their collection, and are included in the exhibition.
Also featured are twenty works on paper by the artist created between 2012–2022. Janow approaches her drawings with a methodical and meditative focus. Beginning with an open hand-drawn grid, she meticulously fills in each shape with fine lines that resemble faintly moving curtains when complete. This process of intensive crosshatching is precise and introspective, as Janow works with unbroken focus. Her compositions never quite fill the page, leaving a span of charged negative space underneath the grid. Janow’s work on paper is in the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou and will be featured in this year’s Outsider Art Fair Paris and NADA Miami.
On the occasion of Susan Janow’s first museum solo exhibition at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Creative Growth is releasing a limited edition series printed by Hashimoto Contemporary. The print edition of 50 are signed and numbered by the artist.
For more information, visit fwmoa.org.
For inquiries, contact gallery@creativegrowth.org.