Each of Janet Ayliffe’s paintings is like an intricate recapturing of moments from the kaleidoscope of her life. Join Janet as she wanders the shores of Kangaroo Island, capturing these moments in her notebooks.
Meet Janet Ayliffe
Janet Ayliffe has been a printmaker and painter for more than forty years. Born on Kangaroo Island, she spent most of her first eighteen years there, and to this day returns regularly for fresh inspiration.
As soon as she could walk, Janet set out to explore the scrublands and waterways of her family farm. Later with her new “Dad tin canoe”, she travelled the shoreline of Western Cove, and on the old horse, ‘Fatty Nogs’, over the valleys and up to the high hills.
At home Janet made drawings of the wondrous places she had seen with charcoal on walls – all creatures who flew, walked, swam or slithered. Drawing space soon ran out. So then to paper, sheets and sheets of paper…over etching plates and into wood blocks, the pictures went on. Pictures and drawings of her heartland, on this Long Ago Island.
Janet Ayliffe is an award-winning painter and printmaker. She graduated in Fine Art Painting from the South Australian School of Art.
Winner of the 2006 Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize for works on paper and several times Waterhouse Prize and Fremantle Print Award finalist, Janet is represented in public and private collections in Australia and internationally.
In 2016 Janet’s work was included in the Benetton collection, Milan.
Married with three children, Janet lives at Kangarilla, in the Adelaide Hills, which is where she works on her paintings, etchings and wood engravings when not visiting Kangaroo Island.
In her own words
“I was born in 1950, half way through a storm, night, year and century. The Island was my home until I was in my early 20’s. I live now, and for over 30 years, at Kangarilla, with my husband Glen and our three boys. My painting on walls and verandas has continued to many pieces of paper and etching plates, covered with the Blue Stars, Donkeys, and Spider orchids, Snotty-gobble vines, and various long Island stories. I return often to my loved family, the farm and Nepean Bay.
My pictures began with permission to draw on walls and verandas. Then at our school on Kangaroo Island, a time for workbooks and intense projects on Rubber and Egypt, a chance for dreaming and crawling in drains to the harbour. Later, on the mainland, the humanities and the sciences, and the meeting with the wider world. I return to those familiar coastlands and acknowledge the immense privilege of a secure existence; I consider the right of an ordinary life. My compositions begin from this place. My work books come with me most days. I draw the moment of light on a dog’s face, the peace of an old friend in her gnome garden, swans swimming in star seas. They grow into my big pictures, with sea charts, weetbix cards, music, odd socks, and letters. “Signs of life, signs of grace.”
Prints and paintings by Janet Ayliffe available at Fine Art Kangaroo Island
Janet frequently spends time meeting and talking with visitors to our Kingscote Gallery, being one of our regular visiting artists. She has also exhibited in each of our annual themed exhibitions for the SA Living Artists (SALA) Festival at the National Wine Centre.
Janet has made available a selection of her best known works for sale in our online store. These high quality reproductions have been produced in Janet’s studio, and feature a hand-embossed inclusion. To order your own limited edition Janet Ayliffe print from our online store here.
If you wish to purchase a Janet Ayliffe painting that is not available for online ordering, you can still purchase by getting in touch with us. For telephone or email contact, go to our contact page.
Work Created with KI Themes for Fine Art Kangaroo Island’s SALA at National Wine Centre Exhibitions
KI Narrow Leafed Mallee 2010:-
Cneorifolia Thicket On Haines High Hill
Songs of the Cneorifolia
Glossy Black Cockatoo 2011:-
A Flight & Call of Cockatoos & Western Cove – The Glossy Black Cockatoos
Created to match The Black Glossy and Red Tailed Cockatoos a Waterhouse finalist
Coast & Seagrass Meadows 2012:-
The Banded Stilts
A Walk of Snipe And a Lean of Sandpipers
A Creche of Stilts And A Toggle of Toadfish
Rosenberg Goanna 2013 :-
The Swans Ascending… Pelican Lagoon, Kangaroo Island
A Gaze of Goannas and a Peer of Plovers
An Exaltation of Avocets and a Gathering of Godwits
Wetlands & Waterways 2014:-
The Swans Ascending Over Nepean Bay Soak Pond
Meeting The Owl Family Again At Bullocky Creek, Kangaroo Island
On Setting Out To Visit A Kingscote Friend In My New Dad Tin Canoe, 1958, Western Cove Creek Outlet KI
Fungi 2015:-
Early Morning Droving On The Old East West Line
Birds Flying South
Island High Hills To La Rogue Gagaec
Grass Tree and Green Carpenter Bee 2016:-
Of The Carpenter Bee
The Scarlet Robin and The Xanthorrhoea
The South Western Pygmy Possums and The Carpenter Bee
Call into Fine Art Kangaroo Island to view and purchase framed or unframed.