Janice McNab | KABK Royal Academy of Art The Hague (original) (raw)
Janice McNab is a Scottish /Dutch artist and writer. She grew up in the Scottish Highlands and studied at Glasgow School of Art and The University of Amsterdam. She was a 2022 Fellow of The Women's International Study Centre in Santa Fe and is Head of MA Artistic Research at The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
The twin pressures that drive McNab’s work are feminism and climate concern, and they have woven through her painting for over twenty-five years. Her works are known for their intimacy and depth, as well as their surreal representations of the fabric of everyday life – overconsumption and ecological decline seen as forces that impact and re-make our own bodies as well as surrounding life.
McNab develops her paintings in groups, and her research-based approach has produced worlds modelled out of single-use plastics, broken aeroplane chairs, melting ice and, most recently, in the creation of fragile landscapes drawn from the folds of an old scarf. Her written work often focusses on the work of other women artists.
Represented by Galeria Fermay, Palma de Mallorca.
Address: Royal Academy of Art, Prinsessegracht 4, The Hague
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Papers by Janice McNab
Research in arts and education, May 3, 2024
Religious Studies Review, Mar 1, 2021
Jemima Brown, Peace Camp - Marking the 40th Anniversary of Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, 2021
This essay reviews the site specific sculptural work, Peace Camp, by Jemima Brown. It analyses th... more This essay reviews the site specific sculptural work, Peace Camp, by Jemima Brown. It analyses the works themselves and the social and political history of the women's movement they are part of.
Alice Neel, the Subject and Me, 2016
Analysis of 'Girl in a Café' 1975, by American painter Alice Neel (1900 - 1984). Published in 'Al... more Analysis of 'Girl in a Café' 1975, by American painter Alice Neel (1900 - 1984). Published in 'Alice Neel - The Subject and Me,' exhibition catalogue, The Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh, 2016.
The Ghost Artist proposes a history of women's self-portraiture within which naturalistic body po... more The Ghost Artist proposes a history of women's self-portraiture within which naturalistic body portrayal is subverted by a spectral idea of the body. With examples from across three centuries, I trace how this allowed self-visualisation to become an act of feminist resistance to the ideals set up within naturalistic representation. Key serial works by Bourgeois and Af Klint are analysed in relation to an anonymous book of watercolours by a previously unknown C18th woman artist. In each case, the inherently surface values of classical portraiture are circumvented by partial, ghostly stand-in representations of undervalued household surfaces.
Edited correspondence between the artist and curator Francis Woodley on the role of the female bo... more Edited correspondence between the artist and curator Francis Woodley on the role of the female body in the artist's still life paintings, particularly the series The Ice Cream Paintings. Considers the private and public body, the ageing body, the monstrous, and painting itself as body and container.
Books by Janice McNab
Research in arts and education, May 3, 2024
Religious Studies Review, Mar 1, 2021
Jemima Brown, Peace Camp - Marking the 40th Anniversary of Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, 2021
This essay reviews the site specific sculptural work, Peace Camp, by Jemima Brown. It analyses th... more This essay reviews the site specific sculptural work, Peace Camp, by Jemima Brown. It analyses the works themselves and the social and political history of the women's movement they are part of.
Alice Neel, the Subject and Me, 2016
Analysis of 'Girl in a Café' 1975, by American painter Alice Neel (1900 - 1984). Published in 'Al... more Analysis of 'Girl in a Café' 1975, by American painter Alice Neel (1900 - 1984). Published in 'Alice Neel - The Subject and Me,' exhibition catalogue, The Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh, 2016.
The Ghost Artist proposes a history of women's self-portraiture within which naturalistic body po... more The Ghost Artist proposes a history of women's self-portraiture within which naturalistic body portrayal is subverted by a spectral idea of the body. With examples from across three centuries, I trace how this allowed self-visualisation to become an act of feminist resistance to the ideals set up within naturalistic representation. Key serial works by Bourgeois and Af Klint are analysed in relation to an anonymous book of watercolours by a previously unknown C18th woman artist. In each case, the inherently surface values of classical portraiture are circumvented by partial, ghostly stand-in representations of undervalued household surfaces.
Edited correspondence between the artist and curator Francis Woodley on the role of the female bo... more Edited correspondence between the artist and curator Francis Woodley on the role of the female body in the artist's still life paintings, particularly the series The Ice Cream Paintings. Considers the private and public body, the ageing body, the monstrous, and painting itself as body and container.