JANET GEORGE Paradise Paved | Digitally manipulated photography | 2021

“Paradise Paved was inspired by the song, Big Yellow Taxi written, composed and recorded by Joni Mitchell in 1970.
‘Don‘t it always seem to go that you don‘t know what you‘ve got till it‘s gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot...^
The artwork illustrates the irony of the loss of our green spaces by paving over nature in public areas and subsequently
creating murals of nature to beautify and soften the hard concrete, blacktop or bricks. The image also depicts the resilience
of nature as we see the greenery growing through the concrete cracks in what appears to be an effort to reassert itself as
‘paradise^ and reclaim both the parking lot and the wall. Once the concept for the work was conceived, the process of
creating Paradise Paved first involved a search for the perfect parking lot and wall on which to create the mural.
Relying on an abundance of my original floral photographs I layered and layered images on the wall, enhancing, adding
and subtracting to create the mural. Finally, I was able to bring the various images together into one that I felt conveyed
the story best. The story of a song about a paradise lost without understanding, and how I could represent the irony of
that loss to viewers.”
-Janet George

Born and raised in Detroit, Janet George has been happy to call Columbus home for over thirty years. She is a self-taught
visual artist and began exhibiting as a fine art photographer in 2008. What sets George’s work apart is her versatility.
She‘s had three solo shows featuring her photographic work, has participated in numerous group exhibitions, both juried
and invited, as a mixed-media artist. In the last few years, George has explored combining traditional photography techniques
with digital art tools. Additionally, George enjoys curating art shows and in 2012 she created and curated, Columbus in a Snap,
a photo exhibit to celebrate Columbus’ bicentennial. Since that time she‘s gone on to curate a number of exhibitions and
in 2018 was invited to be the first guest curator for The Eastside Art Initiative. George is a member of the artist collective,
Creative Women of Color (CWoC) and The Eastside Art Initiative.