The snow almost completely obscures the town in Jan Perkins' oil painting, "Snowy Main Street." The piece is composed of 80-85% whites, both white-whites and off-white pastels, which work to create contour to the overwhelm of snow. The shapes of buildings are visible on what is clearly Main Street, Park City, and there is a street just discernible through the flurry. There's a fluffy mounded snowbank at the curb where a plow has tried and failed to keep the road clear during the storm. A groove bisects the snowbank, carved by pedestrians into what should be a sidewalk. Perkins has rendered all of these in very subtle moves of white and pastels. In the left foreground of the composition shops and lights pop brightly in the monochrome of the blizzard dusk. Only here, closest to the viewer- in15% or so of the composition- are colors fully saturated and darks visible, cheerfully illuminating the otherwise white-out of the painting.
Jan Perkins' paintings are inspired by the landscape that surrounds her. "Horses, cows, sheep, old farms, barns, ranches, and western rural landscapes are some of my favorite subjects," she writes. "It's the land that inspires me, the open spaces, the quiet, and the beauty that I experience in my everyday life. When I am out on the land, around animals, I am immediately restored to peace, to wholeness, to an indescribable calm. For me these experiences are nothing less than sacred. "
Jan Perkins graduated with a degree in illustration from Utah State University. She has worked as a fashion and magazine illustrator before turning to painting full time. Working in oils, she prefers to layer her paint using a palette knife, with some brush work to create richly textured work. Her paintings have exhibited in Oil Painters of America Western Regional Show, the American Plains Artist’s Show, the 16th Annual American Impressionist Society National Exhibition at Trailsides Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ, the 46th Annual Mountain Oyster Club Contemporary Art Show and Sale in Tucson, AZ, the American Academy of Equine Art Spring Exhibition, and the Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show. Her work as also shown in numerous local exhibitions, including the Park City Kimball Arts Festival , and the Springville Museum of Art, Spring Salon.
