About the artist

Jan Purdy Metcalf’s life and work have been shaped by continuity as certain elements have remained constant over time: water and close attention to place. Her paintings reflect a process of returning to familiar forms and environments and she describes this long accumulation of experience as coming full circle. Raised in Michigan near the water, Jan developed an early familiarity with open space and light. Art was never separated from daily life, but existed along side it as a steady presence rather than a single defining pursuit. She first came to Nantucket as a teenager after missing her schedule flight and arriving instead on a Mail freight plane. What followed was not an instant attachment but the beginning of a relationship with the island that deepened over the decades. Nantucket became a place she returned to again and again, and formed a rhythm that held steady through many chapters of her life. She divided her time between Nantucket and the Abacos in the Bahamas, and moving back-and-forth between the two islands continued to shape how she channeled the delicacies of water, light, and motion. She worked as an interior designer, painted murals, owned and operated a children’s clothing store and built businesses that required imagination. visual judgment, creativity and problem-solving. It was Art applied to every day experience. Through the years she continued to paint when time allowed, and returned when it did not. Jan best known for her paintings of sailboats, which have particularly allowed her to explore movement and balance while maintaining structure to hold the composition together. Her paintings are contemporary and often appear loose at first glance, yet they are carefully resolved as she pares away excess, and uses color to carry the work, often anchored in blue. The same concerns extend into her little black dress series where black-and-white distills the form into essentials. Jan is a longtime member of the Art Association of Nantucket, and art remains a fully integrated part of her life where her experience as designer, muralist, mother and painter all remain present and in the end everything has, as she says, come full circle.

Jan Purdy Metcalf