Pete Janes

Profile

A 40-something organic produce worker with a background in popular culture and publishing who paints in watercolors because the results are sublime but the media is unforgiving.

Hello, and thank you for dropping by my pages. I hope you like what you see. I am a self-taught watercolor artist and illustrator, although I would argue that being surrounded by great art and artists all my life has certainly helped. I was raised in Newport, Rhode Island just a stone’s throw from the Newport Art Association Since my mother’s friend was the curator, and we lived in a monstrously huge old Victorian house, we hosted numerous parties and gatherings of the Association through the 1970s. As a child I was fortunate enough to become acquainted with the likes of Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, James Baker, Christo and others. Famed New York art superhero Irving Bloom, impressed with one of my sculptures that my mother had used as a centerpiece, signed my guest book “Irving Bloom, your future art dealer”.

I believe that illustration has always been at the root of my art practice, and in that sense, most of my art would be considered Realism. This is odd because my work sometimes tends toward the fantastic and the unreal. When you get down to it, illustration is merely a very complex graphic exchange of ideas, so even when I drift into stranger worlds I am still striving for some sense of veracity, as if I am describing something that is actually kicking around somewhere in the universe.

I have always drawn, and pencil work still holds a lot of magic for me. Sometimes I sketch out pieces in pencil and then have to stop myself from jumping in and rendering/shading them.

I started seeking illustration work in mid ‘80s college and produced images for band show posters, tattoos, and eventually, publication in magazines including BackHome and New Farm Journal. In 1992 I joined the editorial staff at Dark Horse Comics in Portland, Oregon. By the time I moved on from Dark Horse in 2000 I had edited over 300 individual comic titles utilizing scores of freelance artists on projects including Ghost in the Shell, Star Wars and Tarzan. I was privileged to edit two different unfinished Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and produce them as illustrated books. I even worked on a twelve-issue comic-book adaptation of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen, While my own artwork never graced these pages, it was fulfillment of a childhood dream to work with some of the greatest artists in comic illustration, and every day was a learning experience about surviving on one’s art. During this time I opened Obsidian Gallery in downtown Portland, Oregon, where I showcased myself and other popular-culture themed artists.

Many of my insect/arachnid pieces are posed just as actual specimens are collected and mounted. My style here originated when I was purely a pen-and-ink illustrator drawing specimens for academic syllabuses and print media. Many years later, I read an article about how some rare butterfly and moth species were in danger of extinction due to over-harvesting for the souvenir and collector trade. Coinciding with my first real explorations into color, I began painting specimen-style, reasoning that collectors may be open to collecting hand-wrought facsimiles instead of the actual insects. A fundamental reverence for nature must always inform our actions.

I have had a life-long fascination with insects and spiders. They are marvels of natural design. Painting them larger than life allows me to reveal them as true animals rather than anonymous crawling things. And as subjects go, there is an insect out there to meet whichever palette an artist desires.

I really appreciate your visit and your comments, and hope that you will consider ordering a print or some cards!