Janet Sang ARE

Janet Sang is an artist-printmaker based in Brighton. Since 2016 she has made prints at Volcanic Editions, a studio run by Ian Brown ARE. Her work embodies layers of ideas, and is driven by an engagement with social injustice and inequality. She constructs allegorical settings, often anchored in specific events or places. She uses autographic and digitally-mediated imagery, combining them through radical juxtaposition, cryptic clues and metaphor.

Janet says of her work: "I think of my approach as collagist, and enjoy how screenprinting in particular allows me to assemble and re-assemble images from different sources. I can layer marks and colours, and play with perception. My prints typically have more than twenty layers of ink, and I work on heavy paper to support them, making small editions and printing to the edge of the paper so that the finished pieces really feel like physical objects. Some prints begin with hand-drawn positives, whereas for others I use Photoshop to map out compositions. The process is very revealing and every print is an adventure. I adjust my plans throughout to explore what emerges in the form of hidden information and the character of particular visual signatures. I want to draw people in and engage their attention at as many levels as possible, challenging them to tease out possible meanings for themselves."