“Life is short. Art is long. When I’m gone, the paintings are what remains of me.”
Janet I. Traub paints the hardest subject there is: the human figure, rendered until it breathes.
A Canadian artist working in the tradition of figurative realism, she builds each painting to be felt before it is understood. Every canvas begins with a vision and ends only when the finished work matches it, the drawing exact, the light in its proper order, the emotion intact. She paints on linen prepared to last for centuries, because a painting should outlive its maker.
Her work has been shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award at London’s National Portrait Gallery, selected for ModPortrait in Spain, and exhibited in New York, Barcelona, Florence, London, and Hong Kong. The National Gallery of Canada holds her work in its archives.
She paints for one moment: when a stranger stops in front of a canvas and cannot walk away.
