Janet Snell was a graduate, magna-cum-laude, of the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she studied painting with the late Ed Dugmore. She showed her work in venues such as The Drawing Center in New York City, Strathmore Hall in DC, Asterisk Gallery in Cleveland, the Massillon Museum and Summit Art Space in her hometown of Akron. Snell authored FLYTRAP (Cleveland State University Press Poetry Center), the e-book HEADS (March Street Press) and TWICE TOLD TALES (Poet's Haven Press). She also collaborated with her sister, the writer Cheryl Snell, on chapbooks and their blog, Scattered Light. She died in 2020.
Comments from the Reviews:
"THAT FEEL is one of the finest collaborative books published by the sisters Snell. Cheryl Snell is a fine poet and her sister Janet Snell is a fine expressionist artist. In their previous books there was often the question of whether Janet was illustrating Cheryl's poetry or if perhaps each artist made her art and then combined it in the most suitable manner.
Now it is obvious that the art that spreads across both sides of an open book is unified and equally involved in the nidus of expression. The poems and art of THAT FEEL seem to be more visceral than those that came before them - these are poems from the gut, art about alienation and longing and rapturous moments that fade too quickly (or were they even there?).. THAT FEEL is a brief book, but a powerful one..." -Grady Harp
" It could be the case that those human heads are floating in a paradoxical space: yes, obviously human (and all that that signals to us) but also pure moments of form. Cephalic shapes to circumscribe color-vacuums, lending force to the other “objects.”Another impression jumps into my own head, beyond what I said above about...well, whatever it was I said. For me, I feel like I'm looking at a negative-image of consciousness. The subconscious? Maybe. And what's weird and cool is that those heads, drained of color and feature detail, seem to express more human soulfulness and depth than even a portrait by Rembrandt!..."Tim Buck
"... Both Snells' (author and painter) works soar in this lovely book. It was interesting to watch the movement of fear between the poems...A nervous and wonderful collection of art fused with poetry."--Andrew Demcak
Dorothy Shin, Akron Beacon Journal--"Her work is dark,mysterious, seemingly drawn from the subconscious...Foreboding, regret, entrapment, longing and enigma vie for prominence while gestural, expressive brushwork gives the forms a supernormal tension and energy..."
Bob Grumman, Taproot--"Macabre, comic, mysterious, and subtly erotic, these fascinating drawings constantly flirt with disgust -- a perfect example of graphic black humor...A series of charcoal drawings that go darkly anywhere via an expressionism that reminds me of Egon Schiele and Francis Bacon. Snell provides poems for her illustrations that generally extend rather than just rephrase them---"