Paul Jansen 

Jansen may render several connecting
interstices or curved forms with strange
volumes which cast shadows across the
canvass. Whatever he puts his hand to, the
results are always inventive.
The artist's graceful, ribbon-like forms
are swollen with sensuality as they appear
from some space outside of the canvass
and loom across the picture plane, weaving
and interweaving in against themselves.
These works are pure invention, unlike
anything else now in painting. They cannot
be grouped with any school of thought, as
Jansen is an independent artist who has
chosen to observe but not participate in re-
cent trends, preferring to state his own
ideas rather than be absorbed by any group.
Jansen uses space in a most original way.
For most painters, abstract shapes function
in one plane. Jansen, however, models his
shapes. Because he graduates the tones in
his shapes from light to dark, and because
they cast shadows, they are no longer
perceived as two-dimensional shapes, but
as volumes.
Jansen uses abstract configurations
reflecting the conventional ideas of classi.-
cal painting as a model. And so in spite of
the strangeness of his shapes, or rather
volumes, he is in reality an essentially tradi-
tional artist. For one, his paintings indicate
foreground and background, and two, the
underpinnings or structure of his canvasses
use color as tone. His serial paintings are
his least "classical" pieces.
Jansen's billowing forms are extremely
suggestive as they weave across the sur-
face. In some paintings the canvass
becomes increasingly complex and inter-
esting as the viewer perceives first one con-
figuration then another and still another.
Jansen's forms are always circular. He is
utterly absorbed by the endless variation of
arcs and circle fragments which swerve
and gain momentum, coil-like, as they seem
to move across the picture surface, filled
with a latent tension and power.
Jansen is an unusual and interesting ar-
fist who deals with paradoxes and combines
old and new ideas in a body of work which is
utterly original.

Exhibitions

1979 Court Hill Gallery, New York
1976 Stamford Public Library,

Stamford, Connecticut
1974 Razor Gallery, New York
1972 Durer Gallery, San Francisco
1971 Berkeley Museum, Berkeley,
California
Leopold Gallery, Berkeley, California
1970 Visual Arts Gallery, New York
(two-man show)