Janice Stanley: Painting Pantu
Janice Stanley has been painting with us for years. We've watched her work grow, we know her family, and we've seen more of her paintings come to life in our gallery than anyone else's. This is a little about who she is, where her paintings come from, and why her work means so much to us.
Three generations of Stanley women
Janice was born in 1987 and comes from Pukatja (Ernabella) in the APY Lands of South Australia. She is the third generation of Stanley women to paint. Her grandmother Tjariya Stanley was a founding artist and a traditional healer, and her aunts Alison Milyika Carroll and Renita Stanley are senior artists in their own right.
When Janice was still at school she would sit and watch her grandmother and aunties paint. The story she paints today was taught to her by her mother and her family, the same way it was taught to them.
Pantu and the Seven Sisters
Janice paints Pantu, the salt lakes near Atila (Mount Conner), close to the Northern Territory border. The lakes are part of Kungkarangkalpa, the Seven Sisters story. As the sisters travelled across the country they shaped the land in their wake, and Pantu is one of the places they made.
Her bird's eye view of the lakes came from flying over her Country and seeing them from the air. That view never left her. Every Pantu painting is that moment, looking down on the salt and the water and the colour spreading across the land.
Painting with us
Janice paints here at the gallery in Edwardstown, and watching her work is something else. She doesn't build her paintings with a brush the way most desert artists do. She pours and moves paint and medium across the canvas, guiding it until the colours run together like water across a salt flat. Then come the fine white lines that trace the edges of the lake.
No two days are the same. Some days she arrives full of energy, some days she's quiet, and you can see it in what she paints. The colours follow her mood. Her family is part of every painting too: her son, her partner Isaac and her aunties, who carry the Seven Sisters story with her.
Over the years we've watched her paintings change. Some carry on directly from what she was painting five years ago, and some head somewhere completely new. She is always moving.
Recognition
Janice's work is held in the Parliament House Art Collection in Canberra, the Janet Holmes ร Court Collection in Perth and the Australian Embassy in Zagreb, Croatia. She has exhibited in Brussels, Berlin, Sydney, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Broome and Perth. That's a lot for an artist still in her thirties, and she's only getting started.
"Pantu (Salt Lake)" Janice Stanley 193cm x 168cm
Gold, coral, turquoise and pink pooling across almost two metres of canvas. One of the biggest Pantu paintings we hold.
"Pantu (Salt Lake)" Janice Stanley 199cm x 116cm
Long sweeps of rust, mauve and pink with fine white lines running over the top, all pulling towards the centre.
"Pantu (Salt Lake)" Janice Stanley 192cm x 85cm
Ochre, gold and deep blue breaking into small cells of colour, like the crust of a salt lake seen from above.
"Pantu (Salt Lake)" Janice Stanley 152cm x 97cm
Coral, teal and violet flowing in long bands across the canvas. Some of the most movement we've seen in one of her paintings.
"Pantu (Salt Lake)" Janice Stanley 136cm x 88cm
Violet, gold and deep blue with a burst of light through the middle. Rich and dark, it glows on a white wall.
"Pantu (Salt Lake)" Janice Stanley 170cm x 65cm
Greens and turquoise with flashes of coral. Long and narrow, for a hallway or above a sideboard.
If you're in Adelaide, come and see Janice's work in person at the gallery at 1070 South Road, Edwardstown. The texture of the poured paint has to be seen up close.