The Lake

Janet Stayton (born 1939) is an American artist working from the Tuscan town of Pietrasanta in northern Italy. Her large, rich paintings of Mediterranean scenes are to Tuscany what Matisse gave to the Provençal communes of Nice and Vence, near the Côte d’Azur: still life scenes unfolding towards the edge of the canvas as busy interior spaces blur into fringe street scenes and waterfronts.

Stayton’s colourful art takes great inspiration from the likes of Matisse and Bonnard, offering perspectival shifts as table tops spill into rooms, or roll out through windows into the vistas beyond. A recent innovation involves painted and stuccoed frames within paintings themselves, multiple bordered images drawing the eye around and through the depth of the canvas.