Jane Goren: Through the Glass Smartly at Camel’s Garden

23 Aug Jane Goren: Through the Glass Smartly at Camel’s Garden

With apologies to Ingmar Bergman, LA/Telluride-based artist Jane Goren works through glass smartly, a variation on a theme she has repeated with aplomb and finesse for decades.

Jane Goren. Her latest work is now on display at Telluride’s Camel’s Garden Hotel.

When the owners of a luxury hotel decided to offer guests (and the Town of Telluride) a unique art experience, they turned to Goren who, years ago, had designed the venue’s logo. Now her new reverse glass painting on vintage windows are on display in the Camel’s Garden Hotel, 280 West San Juan Avenue, Telluride, hanging in the hotel’s grand lobby, in the second floor lobby and in all of the guest rooms.

Note (or hint): Camel’s Garden is a favorite hang for Tinseltown guests during the upcoming Telluride Film Festival.

On Sunday, August 27, 4 – 6 p.m., the community is invited to view Goren’s work in the hotel’s main lobby, where the artist will be on hand to explain the work.

In all started after one of LA’s major earthquakes. Goren began collecting discarded windows, which she painted on the reverse side of the glass in an attempt to heal and restore order to the disoriented city. The technique of reverse glass painting challenged her skills at the same time allowed the artist to examine issues of voyeurism, surveillance and the deceitful nature of appearances.

Many of the windows in Goren’s latest series were collected over the years in Telluride, including a window saved from the old Liberty Mine, now hanging in the second floor public space. Other images were inspired by the painted ladies or brides of the night, some of whom were known to have sat in windows advertising, err, the goods, while waiting for the miners to return to town looking for a soft place to land after days and weeks of hard labor.

Clearly, in her unique, eye-dazzling fashion, Jane Goren is preserving Telluride’s cultural history.

The new series also tracks on a continuum of purposeful repetition throughout art history.

In the 19th century, the Impressionist Monet painted haystacks and Notre Dame, other places and things, over and over again, in different seasons, at different times of day, as light transformed his subjects.

Later, Rothko repeatedly created what became his signature works: transcendental landscapes of awe-inspiring spirituality.

Other artists too numerous to name – think Warhol’s soup cans and his Marilyns – repeated themselves with impunity, creating some of their best work in the process.

A quote from iconic Pop artist Jasper Johns sums up the impulse in plainspeak:

“Take an object, do something to it, do something else to it. What you do, alters what you want to do. In seeing one thing, we probably see many.”

Think about what happens when we say the words of a mantra or prayer over and over again. Rituals – and images – of any kind gather power through repetition.

The point is underlined in Jane Goren’s latest body of work.

“Jane Goren is a local treasure and we are proud to have her work prominently displayed in numerous locations throughout Telluride. Telluride was designated as a National Historic Landmark District more than 50 years ago. For more than 30 of those years, Jane Goren has done her part to preserve Telluride’s history. Using rusted metal artifacts and vintage windows, Jane has transformed discarded objects into into bold works of art that bring Telluride’s history to life. Her metal collages were showcased in RUST- 2- RUST, a 2008 exhibition at the Telluride Historical Museum. And for over 25 years, Jane has immortalized the women and men of 19th-century Telluride, capturing their iconic images on the panes of historic windows. With her work in collections around the globe, Jane Goren has shared the unique history and character of Telluride with the world. We celebrate Jane’s commitment to preserving our town and telling its unique and colorful story,” said Telluride mayor Sean Murphy.

Jane Goren has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally as a veteran of the New York and Los Angeles art scenes for more than 25 years. In repurposing vintage windows and painting them in reverse, she is able to create a healing experience of resurrection and transformation.

Years ago, while visiting Telluride over Film Fest weekend, the renowned Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira said of Goren’s windows: “Her work was even more sensual than that of his friend Matisse.”

Goren’s paintings, which reflect (pun intended) her unique way of viewing the world through other peoplesʼ windows, are also on display at one of Telluride’s foremost restaurants, La Marmotte.

More about Jane Goren:

Jane Goren was born and educated in New York City and was part of the art and theatre scene in the Big Apple until she moved to Los Angeles in 1974.

Goren works in two- and three-dimensional forms in a variety of materials. Her work examines themes of disorientation, voyeurism and eroticism and often includes discarded material, raising issues of materialism and relative value. The seriousness of her images is frequently punctuated with a visual pun.

Goren is greatly influenced by cultural diversity, which she seeks out in her travels. Many of her images are a metaphor for transition and the duality of life and death, as well as our survival in an edgy world.

“Some artists, through their work, try to find the meaning of life,” says Goren. “As for me, I don’t care what it means…I just want to keep it going!”

She means that literally: travel has always played an important part in Goren’s life and essential to her artistic development, informing her art with a multicultural dynamic charged with personal meaning. Goren has lived and worked in Berlin, Germany in 1999, and in Hangzhou, China in 2000. She has also spent time painting in India, Brazil, Italy, Jamaica and Cuba.

Goren’s work has been shown extensively in the United States, as well as internationally. Her images are included in such public collections as Mercedes-Benz, the National Public Library, the LAUSD Child Abuse Prevention office and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, as well as the private collection of President Fidel Castro.

Jane Goren lives and works in LA. but spends as much time as possible in her studio in Telluride, Colorado.

Public Collections:

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles, Ca.

Camel’s Garden Hotel, Telluride, Co.

La Marmotte Restaurant,  Telluride, Co.

LAUSD Child Abuse Prevention Office, Los Angeles, Ca.

Mercedes Benz Headquarters, Stuttgart, Germany

National Public Library, “READ” poster, USA

Paris Bar, Berlin, Germany

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, Ca.

USC Film School Library, Los Angeles, Ca.

Women In Film, Los Angeles,Ca.

Private Collections:

President Fidel Castro

Darren Frank (gallerist)

Margita Fuchsova (Czech Ambassador to Kenya)

Vaclav Havel (first president of the Czech republic)

Andrea Jaffe (Twentieth Century Fox former President Marketing)

Ivan and Anne Passer (award-winning Czech film director)

Michael and Irina Zivian (producer of Andy Warhol serigraphs, hotelier)