Susan Janow

Untitled, SJ 494, 2025
Ink on paper
18 x 24 inches (45.72 x 60.96 cm)

Courtesy of Creative Growth Art Center

Selected by Valérie Rousseau

Susan 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. Although she prefers to draw primarily with black ink, at times Janow substitutes or includes blocks of color with intuitive choices. When working sculpturally with ceramic tiles or wood, she maintains her linear rhythm while exploring other patterns and forms. Each block or tile is painted with a distinct design of dots and dashes, which read like nuanced barcodes of color when composed en masse.
 
A multimedia artist, Janow’s practice is expansive. She works with ink, ceramic, collage, woodwork, and textile, and she is widely recognized for her video work. Janow writes, directs, and often stars in her own short films created in Creative Growth’s Digital Media Lab. 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
 
Janow's artwork is in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France.