Collection: This is a Picture that Janice Made

Originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Janice Essick (b. 1958) has practiced at Interact since 2005. Drawn from personal history as well as invention, her paintings of women, men, horses, cityscapes, and color compose an intimate iconography that spans her seventeen-year career at Interact. This is a Picture that Janice Made features 35 drawings and paintings from her extensive archive.  

Essick's work is simultaneously boundless and expressive, intimate and compelling. She is an ardent recorder of people, both in groups and alone, showing dramatic faces and personal style. Working intuitively and incessantly, Essick adds layers of medium until a piece looks right. In the studio, she surrounds herself with reference books, markers, and paints, a spread of images and media to choose from. 

Essick, who identifies as a Black woman, includes in the exhibition excerpts from a series of drawings that she made in Summer 2020, responding to the murder of George Floyd. Her paintings of men in orange clothing and tan uniforms revisit the artist's personal experience in Milwaukee years ago, where she survived police brutality.

Alongside these scenes of violence and social unrest, Essick inserts moments of hope. Riders and horses represent liberation, a rider being untouchable by the police. Images of people on horseback and portraits of horses also hold personal significance: years ago, when she lived in Wisconsin, Essick loved to ride a horse named Pony.

Essick paints fearlessly and hopes that viewers will feel "happy, pretty, and all of that" when experiencing her work. “I think I did a good job,” Essick says of the exhibition. “I hope people like it.”