Layers to Spray Paint

A Conversation Between Depth, Process, and Painting

There has always been a conversation between tradition and experimentation in my work.

I was classically trained in painting, where an image is built gradually—layer upon layer—until those individual decisions become part of a single surface.

My multi-layered acrylic glass paintings began as a way of physically separating that traditional process. Instead of allowing each layer to disappear beneath the next, I paint across the fronts and backs of multiple panels of acrylic glass. When assembled, the layers remain individually visible while coming together to form one complete image.

Over time, that exploration of depth has led me somewhere very different: spray paint on linen.

May the Four Winds Blow You Home Again
24” x 24”, Multi-Layered Acrylic Glass

Five individually painted panels of acrylic glass create physical depth, allowing each stage of the painting to remain visible within the finished work.

FROM PHYSICAL DEPTH TO OPTICAL DEPTH

My Blur paintings may exist on a single surface, but I am still thinking in layers.

With spray paint, edges dissolve, colors overlap and forms move in and out of focus. Instead of creating physical distance between transparent panels, I’m creating the perception of depth on a two-dimensional surface.

The materials and visual language are different, but the underlying questions are remarkably similar: How can color create space? How much information does the eye need to recognize a form? What happens when something moves between clarity and abstraction?

Flowers have become a particularly interesting place for me to explore those questions.

All Good Things in All Good Time
24" × 24" | Spray Paint on Linen
2026

WATCH IT COME INTO BLOOM

All Good Things in All Good Time began as a blank linen surface.

I filmed the painting as it developed, and watching the time-lapse afterward (54 Seconds) gave me an entirely different perspective on the process. Shapes appear, disappear and overlap until, almost unexpectedly, the flowers begin to emerge, as if they were blooming.

In less than a minute, you can watch the painting move from its first marks to its finished state.

NEXT: PAINTING IT LIVE

All Good Things in All Good Time will be part of the silent auction at the 45th Annual Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale in Cody, Wyoming.

And on September 19, I’ll take this process out of the studio.

For the first time, I'll participate in the show's Quick Draw, creating a companion painting live, from start to finish, alongside other participating artists and in front of an audience.

There will be no editing out the pauses, changes of direction or unexpected decisions. What normally happens privately in my studio will happen in real time.

The process film above offers a little preview of what that experience may look like—although doing it live will undoubtedly bring an entirely different energy.

WHERE THE TWO PROCESSES MEET

What interests me most is that I don’t see these as two separate directions in my work.

The layered acrylic glass paintings are informing the spray paintings, and the spray paintings are beginning to influence how I think about the acrylic glass.

I’m now imagining what happens when spray paint enters those transparent layers—when the softness, atmosphere, and blurred depth of the spray paintings begin interacting with the physical depth of acrylic glass.

Rather than one process replacing another, I see a back-and-forth conversation developing between them.

MY WORK IN CODY

This year, several pieces of my work will be part of the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale events:

May the Four Winds Blow You Home Again , 20.5” x 20.5”
Multi-Layered Acrylic Glass

Live Auction — September 18

All Good Things in All Good Time
24" × 24" | Spray Paint on Linen

Silent Auction

Happiness
12" × 12" | Multi-Layered Acrylic Glass

Silent Auction

NFA — Not Fade Away, 6” x 6”

Donated in support of the Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale

I’m looking forward to bringing these different parts of my practice together in Cody—and especially to discovering what happens when a process that usually unfolds privately in my studio happens in front of a live audience.

Thank you, as always, for following the work as it continues to evolve.

Warmly,
Janell