About Janis Fry
Born in London on the half century, Janis Fry studied Theology and English at Bangor University and abandoned organised religion when confronted with the power of Nature and the elements in the landscape of Snowdonia. A few years later she studied at Swansea College of Art and on completing her diploma set up her studio for silk painting, fascinated by the intensity of colour achievable with French steam fixed dyes, having studied the technique in France. Janis won 3 Design Council Awards for her work in this medium in the 1980s and represented Wales with Laura Ashley in an International Fashion show. Alongside this, her interest in making pottery continued for 30 years but gradually painting took over.
Brought up by Francophile parents, Janis’s deep love of France and n particular Brittany, is a thread that runs throughout her life. For 10 years she ran Art holidays in Le Pouldu, Southern Brittany where Gauguin spent some of his most formative years. Here her passion for Yew trees, begun in Wales in the 70s, was brought together with another Celtic landscape where standing stones and holy wells formed the missing links in an entire spiritual picture. Janis has written 2 self published booklets and 3 published books about ancient yews. A 4th awaits. As both artist and author, her love of the sacred yews, those brought from lands of and around the Holy Lands and planted here by saints and other holy people, is the main subject of her paintings as with her books.
Janis Fry’s work is involved with the mystical and the mythical and is evocative of sacred places and pre-Christian landscapes from an enduring and timeless world. Through her ancient Yew tree work, Janis is involved in rediscovering and reinstating the remnants of an ancient culture and spiritual belief system based in the Natural World and the essential governing elements of Nature. As much of her time as possible is spent either immersed in the raw beauty of the landscape or in studying the emotional and spiritual power of colour and light. Recent work explores the shock of intense contrasts of colour and tone, a reminder that Nature is not always benign or gentle. Janis Fry is a visionary painter whose paintings begin in her mind from time spent in the wild and in contemplation. She is concerned with things that form the basis of our existence, what she calls ‘the real world’ and is engaged in a search for things that are fundamental to how life works, through synchronicity and the magical, eternal spirit moving behind our lives and rendering them meaningful.