French Version
Biography
Canadian artist Bev Juno's unique style is a combination of a formal discipline and her constant challenge to break the rules and develop new possibilities. After her Fine Arts training in 1978, she spent the next ten years as a large-format watercolour artist. Later she threw away the frame and moved into the realm of Interactive Art. It is her remarkable vision that has taken her art into the multidimensional expression it has today.
Juno was born in rural Ontario surrounded by inspiring countryside. Her earliest sketches and drawings depicted fragments of landscape and imagery. With an inventor for a father, Juno was constantly encouraged to explore and question the world around her. Her talent consumed her and opened the doors to a higher discipline.
In 1978 she completed an Honors degree in Fine Arts, studying at the University of Guelph in Canada and the University of London in England. In Canada, she was taught by a cross section of practicing Canadian and American artists. In England, the home of traditional watercolor painting, she learned the technical aspects of watercolor from the chemical makeup of pigments and brushes and the specific qualities of watercolour papers, to the dry-on-dry, wet-wash and block-out techniques.
While in Guelph, her painting was strongly influenced by a series of personal interviews with A. J. Casson, the youngest member of the Group of Seven, Canada's most famous group of painters. It was through studying Casson that she developed her technique of working from negative image to positive, using volume to move the eye through the painting.
In the early 1980's Juno moved to Calgary, Alberta where the prairie meets the mountains. Her large format geological landscapes as well as Finographs quickly found their way into many corporate and private collections. Traveling exhibitions of these collections spread her reputation as a watercolour painter across Canada.
This need to develop new limits in artistic expression resulted in Juno abandoning painting to work in fiber. She threw away the flat surface and the frame allowing her work to move and flow unconfined. Her decision to collectively entangle these mediums by hand was the logical result of a painters approach. Her transition to Interactive Wall Art was widely accepted and in 1993, Juno successfully participated in the Tokyo International Art Show, where her interactive wall sculptures were composed of fibers, glass, metal, silk, beads, and yarns. Every inch of these art works is fabulously detailed and exquisitely crafted to lead the eye through the piece and awaken the senses. What is the purpose of art but to excite the senses and provoke emotions?
Juno's soft sculptures are conceptualized and displayed on armatures in 3-dimension and on the wall, but can be removed and worn. Many of her images are of the human body and, for a brief moment, the human body becomes an armature for the art. The owner of the art interacts with the piece, bringing it to life. The art then moves into the world interacting with all who see it. "I haven't stopped painting," Juno says, "I've added the dimensions of touch, light and movement allowing the lines of fiber to become my palette."
Juno's art forms vary in shape as do the materials she uses to create them. She controls eye movement with silk, cottons, leather, bone, gemstones, gold leaf, sterling silver wire, stainless steel mesh, and fibers. Juno introduces serigraphy and photographic transfers onto her materials as well as knitting, cloth sculpting, quilting, and collage. Interactive art has been with us for centuries. Cultures throughout the ages used ceremonial clothing as works of art: Ancient Egypt, the Han and T'ang Dynasties in China and the Haian Period in Japan, the Italian Renaissance, and the North American Native Americans. Highly decorative and detailed robes showed historical and ceremonial events recorded in the lines of fiber.
Juno resides on Vancouver Island, British Columbia where the land meets the sea. Her art is found in private and public galleries across Canada, Japan and the United States. She is credited with several international commissions. Her unique vision and expression combined with her dedication, integrity and attention to detail have made her work increasingly valuable and sought after.
"An artist creates art from any medium that passes through their hands. No frames, no limits, no rules can contain pure art." ... Juno