Janet Sainsbury, 'The Giggle Mounted'

I am fascinated by 20th Century figures from art, literature, and popular culture and how they exert influence over our consciousness because of their stories. I paint their portraits to understand their historical reception - mythologising, silencing, neglect (depending on their race, gender, or social class) - I want to connect with them and by so doing arrive at something that feels like an emotional truth. In this sense my paintings are auto biographical. I often paint portraits of my younger self, when I show them alongside better-known figures, I am weaving in ideas about changing perceptions of identity over the passage of time.

I relish researching my subjects, I enjoy uncovering unexpected links between them and myself, between places I know and have lived in. Frequently I am drawn to a subject through admiration of their work or life. Oscar Wilde broke rules and was courageous in his pursuit of the freedom to express himself.

Using photographs as my reference point, I paint multiple versions of the same person. In oil paint, I work slowly, scraping back, rubbing and repainting.

My process reflects oscillating responses and re-appraisals. My portraits aren’t a fixed likeness but are suggestions, acknowledging that the subjects can never be fully known, they are evasive. I capture a recognisable version as experienced uniquely through my personal lens.

Janet graduated from Brighton Art College in 1991. More recently she studied on the Turps Banana Correspondence Course, 2016-2019 and attended a year-long mentoring programme at Newlyn School of Art, 2015.

Career highlights include becoming a Bloomberg New Contemporaries Artist in 2018, exhibiting at John Moores, Liverpool, and South London Gallery; a residency at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives in 2016 and winning an a-n mentoring bursary with Rosalind Davis in 2018.

In 2023 Janet was commissioned to create new work for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter in response to their collections, which resulted in a six-month display and two artworks in their permanent collection.