Work:796-6438
Fax: 796-6406
Email: jane.terzis@uas.alaska.edu
Faculty: Arts and Sciences - Humanities / Campus: Juneau Office: Soboleff Annex 104
Education:
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Ohio Wesleyan University
Master of Arts in Medical and Biological Illustration, University of California, San Francisco
Publications:
Articles:Juneau EmpireCapital City WeeklyOhio Wesleyan University Art Work:Artist PortfolioAlaska State Museum
Biography:
Jane Terzis is an artist who is commonly known for her works in oil, egg tempera, and graphite. She creates invented portraits of different fictional personalities like Mother Courage, Little Brat, or Bogeyman. These imaginary portraits show a definite personality, and tell a story to the viewer. Her "9 Year Old Kid" shows some of this. In somebody's face there's a practiced expression that masks something fundamental that isn't masked in the back. In this painting, she captures closely the slight slump of the shoulders, the tilt of the neck, size of the ears, and the flop of brown hair we can all recognize as belonging to a child of 9 years.
Since she was a child, Terzis has seen herself as an artist. "I used to watch my grandmother paint, and for me, the idea of making a picture was just magical." She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from Ohio Wesleyan University. She then studied for three years to get her Masters in Medical and Biological Illustration. As part of the program, Terzis studied Physiology and Pathology, and took Human Anatomy classes with students of medicine. "The coolest part for me was to see textures and colors inside of bodies and be able to study and reproduce in the way it looks and how it works," said Terzis. She explains that medical illustrators use techniques that other illustrators don't. She had to be precise and accurate. "I was into surrealism at the time and on an impulse, I thought that medical illustration might be the most surreal kind of painting you could get into."
"In art, you express something you can't do in any other way. It opens your mind beyond what you think is so. What we believe is nailed down in our lives, is just a part of what is there."