Spring Blossoms Early
Details
Edition
Unique
Medium
Acrylic Paint, Gouache, and Oil Stick on Baltic Birch Wood Panels
Signature
Signed on Verso
Unframed Dimensions
49 x 40 in
124.46 x 101.6 cm
Year
2024
MORE FROM THIS ARTIST
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Toronto-based conceptual painter Janna Watson creates vibrant, gestural abstractions that trace her journey from a strict Pentecostal upbringing toward a liberated, embodied spirituality. Her paintings are alive with sweeping marks, luminous color, and emotional immediacy and they reimagine faith as a fluid, joyful, uncontained force. In Watson’s world, borders dissolve, intuition takes precedence over doctrine, and the canvas becomes a site where vulnerability and transcendence coexist.
Central to her practice is the belief that process and outcome hold equal weight. Watson paints on the floor, working without a predetermined composition. Her approach bypasses deliberate thought, allowing movement, instinct, and emotion to guide each mark. She likens this creative flow to the “speaking in tongues” of her childhood, a form of ecstatic expression that now resurfaces in her layered color, swift gestures, and rhythmic energy. In this way, her paintings become meditations on freedom: spiritual, emotional, and artistic.
Watson holds an Honors BFA in Drawing & Painting from OCAD University and has exhibited internationally for nearly two decades. Her work is represented by leading galleries across Canada, the United States, and Asia, and her paintings appear in prominent private, corporate, and institutional collections. Notable collectors include TD Bank Financial Group, CIBC, the Ritz-Carlton, Google, Air Canada, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nordstrom, a testament to the broad and enduring appeal of her expressive visual language.
Watson’s paintings resonate with collectors who are drawn to abstraction rooted in authenticity, movement, and emotional depth. Her work occupies a compelling balance between contemporary sophistication and spiritual openness making each piece feel both intimate and expansive. With strong international representation and a growing institutional presence, Watson stands as an important voice in Canadian abstraction and a powerful addition to any contemporary collection.
Explore Janna Watson at DTR Modern Galleries
At DTR Modern Galleries, we are proud to present the work of Janna Watson. Her paintings offer not only striking visual impact, but also a profound sense of freedom, intuition, and living color.
