ART OF ESSEX
JANICE BELOVE
The Wonder of Everyday Moments STORY AND PORTRAIT BY DAN EPSTEIN
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Like so many visual artists, Montclair resident Janice Belove started young. Art lessons from elementary school through high school eventually led her to the Maryland Institute College of Art for a BFA and then to Queens College to get her Master of Fine Arts degree. After college a series of what she smiles when referred to as her “regular jobs” allowed her to paint while she lived in New York City. “If I was drawn to a theme,” she says, “it was illustration.” 1989 found her moving with her husband to Montclair and becoming an adjunct Art professor at both the County College of Morris, and Bergen Community College, subsequently accepting a full-time position at a local high school until she retired in 2022 to turn her full attentions to painting and conducting private painting classes in her own studio. Fishmonger, an 18x24 oil on canvas painted in 2019 exemplifies the illustration approach to her work. A location in San Francisco’s Chinatown in which she confides that some details are invented in this her first attempt working from a photographic reference. “It was the sense of space, the depth from the fish in the foreground through the long narrow room to the window in the back that was interesting.” We love how a mundane moment becomes a festival of interesting details from the figures in the background, the random containers, and the fish waiting to be purchased.
48 | Suburban Essex | Summer 2025