Artist Residency Open Studio with Xylor Jane

During the weekdays from mid-May to mid-June between our weekend events, we welcome solo artists into the Barn for an opportunity to work in the historic space. Artists share their experiences at Open Studios on the final night of their stay.

Xylor Jane, our 2017 Hans Hofmann Resident, creates paintings that are intensely systematic and yet, like the Fibonacci sequence she often renders, equally spiritual in nature. Fittingly, Jane’s methods are almost monklike: she often rises and begins her work as early as 3:00 a.m., a time of day at which she feels she has access to certain inspirational forces. At first glance, her work is reminiscent of a kaleidoscopic optical illusion, repeating dots of color, numbers, grids, and patterns that are simultaneously dizzying and mystical. Color is of key importance, in many cases acting as a code, representing everything from important dates to mathematical sequences. Abstracted and categorized notions of time and emotion are translated into visual patterns through which Jane meditates on the metaphysical.

In seeking to capture the spiritual power of painting through formal means, Jane carries on the tradition of Hans Hofmann, bringing both his theory of “push and pull” and his regard for the spiritual power of color into the twenty-first century. As Hofmann himself put it, “The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color.” Although Jane’s paintings may bear few superficial similarities to Hofmann’s, the philosophy behind her work reflects a deeper, shared reverence for the observation of nature and the essential role of the artist to reveal the great mysteries to be found there.

Jane lives and works in Greenfield, Massachusetts. She has had solo shows at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and the New Britain Museum of American Art, and has been included in group exhibitions at the DeCordova Biennial, the Kunsthalle Andratx, and the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.