Janet Biggs
Janet Biggs (born USA, 1959) currently lives and works in New York, USA.
She received a BFA from Moore College of Art and Design (Philadelphia, USA) in 1982.
Biggs was awarded grants from Art Matters (New York, USA) in 2010 and 1990, the Experimental Television Center (New York, USA) in 2009, and Anonymous Was A Woman (New York, USA) in 2004.
She has been included in the European Media Art Festival (Osnabrueck, Germany) in 2012 and 2008, VIDEONALE13 Festival for Contemporary Video Art (Bonn, Germany) in 2011, and the Miami International Film Festival (Miami, USA) in 2009.
Biggs has had solo exhibitions at the Musée d‘art contemporain de Montréal (Montréal, Canada) in 2012, the Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, USA) in 2011, and The Mint Museum (Charlotte, USA) in 2010.
She has been included in group exhibitions internationally, including Museo d'arte contemporanea Roma (Rome, Italy) in 2011, Houston Center for Photography (Houston, USA) in 2007, and White Columns (New York, USA) in 1992.
Her work is featured in the collections of Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (Ithaca, USA), the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, USA), and the Tampa Museum of Art (Tampa, USA).
“The video opens with a lone figure, myself, in the vastness of the Arctic landscape. The expected sense of peace that comes from isolation and beauty is destabilized by feelings of vulnerability in such a remote land and by the sheer power of nature. Romantic notions of awe and wonder intermingle with feelings of tension brought on by a land that has no want nor need for human presence.
Unexpectedly, the figure loads and shoots off a flare into the archetypal frozen north. This gesture is both an aggressive assertion of power and a cry for help. This violent act is transformed into a sublime moment as the flare gently descends to earth like a falling star.
The figure walks out of the frame leaving no evidence of herself or her act. The Arctic returns to a remote land awaiting interpretation, ripe with the illusion of peace.”