If X, then Y

Solo Exhibition

Gibb Street Gallery, Visarts, Rockville, MD

Low Frequency
acrylic on panel
43 x 37 in.
A Piece of Tomorrow
acrylic on panel
43 x 37 in.
Resemblance Coincidental
2017
acrylic on panel
43 x 37 in.
True Fiction
2017
acrylic and gouache on panel
43 x 37 in.
Compress
2017
acrylic on panel
23.5" x 19"
2017
acrylic on panel
Ice Road
2017
acrylic and flashe on panel
23.5" x 19"
If x, Then y?
2017
acrylic on panel
28 x 24 in.
Truth Table #1
2017
Digital Print
12 x 9 in.
From the Press Release


Painting is Janet Olney’s vehicle for probing the convention of truth. Through observation, she finds truth to be complex, driven by diverse perspectives, assumptions, and experiences. In her experience, reality is a multi-faceted, conditional notion. Her work explores the changeable nature of contemporary reality.


In this body of work, Janet Olney applies conditional statements and logic to perceptual events. The paintings propose if-then statements and offer a conclusion that is open to inference. This series is based on two-value truth tables that Olney constructs using shapes. By building logical statements of visual forms, her tables show how the truth or falsity of a visual expression ultimately depends on the truth or falsity of its components. If the premise of abstract forms is true, then the painting must also be considered true. Each painting considers the visual values and draws a conclusion about the realm in which they exist.