Scottsdale Arts and Janet Towbin Explore the Power of Meditation in New Exhibition

Scottsdale Public Art’s newest exhibition, Meditative Mindscapes, opens Oct. 7 and runs through Dec. 31, 2024, at Scottsdale Civic Center Library. The exhibit features the artwork of Paradise Valley artist Janet Towbin.  

Towbin explores drawing, photography, painting, and printmaking in her work. Artmaking for Towbin is a meditation on pattern, line, and the beauty of nature. Her works are meditations on the form—reflections and repetitions to be drawn into a whole. 

“Anybody knows how to doodle,” says Wendy Raisanen, curator of collections and exhibitions for Scottsdale Public Art, a department of the nonprofit Scottsdale Arts. “Even though what she’s presenting looks really complicated, you don’t have to be a high-tech artist to start because it’s very approachable. Anybody can start doodling and just forget the world to draw something. That is the beginning of finding some peace in art making.” 

Her artworks are tangible evidence of creative meditations. She makes fine pencil drawings with hundreds of repeated shapes and creates mandalas and mirrored patterns using a variety of techniques, including drawing, photography, and computer-aided technology.  

Alongside Towbin’s mandalas and patterns, this exhibition will include a digital loop of her artwork, a how-to on creating your own mandala, and five analog collages created from product boxes.

“The analog collages are from The Boxes Series, based on The Boxes drawings created in the late ’90s,” Towbin says. “These collages continue my fascination with how boxes, when taken apart, reveal an imposing architectural structure.” 

Meditative Mindscapes is Towbin’s first solo exhibition for Scottsdale Arts, but she has been a part of group exhibitions in the past, including Messages in Ink, Women in Print, a 2019 community exhibition featuring fine art prints by female artists from across Arizona. 

Since 2016, Towbin has published more than 100 editions with Brent Bond of Santo Press in Scottsdale. She is a widely exhibited painter, photographer, and printmaker. Towbin has exhibited her work regionally, nationally, and internationally, and her work is in the permanent collections of many museums in the United States. 

“I enjoy revisiting themes and techniques to see how I can develop them and where they may lead me,” Towbin says. “Drawing is a meditative practice for me. It pleases me to see how small motifs/sections can be repeated, mirrored, tessellated, or combined into larger and more ornate patterns.” 

In addition to the exhibition itself, there will be an opening reception to meet Towbin from 4:30 to 6 p.m. on Oct. 10 at the Civic Center Public Gallery. 

Civic Center Public Gallery, located inside Scottsdale Civic Center Library, 3948 N. Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, AZ 85251