Created: Apr 22, 2026 07:56 AM (Updated: Apr 22, 2026 08:43 AM)

Trailblazer: Janet Fish, photographed in the 1970s by Susan Gray (Photograph supplied)

The closing of Janet Fish: Time and Place, the exhibition at Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art, was marked by the world premiere of Paul McGuire’s film, Janet Fish: Catching the Light.

Fish, who died in December 2025, shortly after the exhibit opened, was best known for her radiant still-lifes, complex compositions and energetic brushwork. In his film, McGuire captured the same sense of immediacy, drawing on interviews, archival images, and glimpses of her studios.

The film, which was screened for an audience of more than 50 people on April 16, was followed by a discussion with the film-maker, McGuire; Kara Gilmour, director of the Janet Fish Foundation; and Sara Thom, co-curator of the Masterworks exhibit.

Gilmour said the timing of the documentary was “incredibly poignant”, as it coincided with Fish’s passing.

As such, the film and the exhibition act as a fitting tribute to the artist, her work, and her impact on 20th-century art.

The film’s strength comes from the description of her process by those closest to her. Interviews include her husband, Charles Parness, former studio assistants and fellow artists.

Their voices convey the artist’s intense focus on achieving the luminous effects of light and glass, as well as the human spirit in her later figurative paintings.

Melissa Messina, of DC Moore Gallery, which represented Fish, described for the film the energy Fish brought to her still-life paintings.

“Her colour started from growing up in this intensely colourful tropical island,” said Moore. “It was in her DNA.”

One of the works on display in Janet Fish: Place In Time at Masterworks (File photograph by Blaire Simmons)

The documentary underscores Bermuda’s role in Fish’s beginnings through archival photographs of her childhood at Cluster Cottage and footage showing the arrival of Fish’s paintings at Masterworks.

As her works were unpacked and installed in the gallery, the viewer sees how the dynamic colour and energetic brushwork of her paintings were returning to the origin of her vision.

McGuire explained how significant her vision was. “To understand who [Fish] was, you have to consider she was a trailblazer … she didn’t listen to the crowd. She was exploding with creativity and was able to follow her own instincts.”

Gilmour agreed. Her connection to the artist dates back decades, when she was growing up in Vermont and Fish was her mother’s best friend.

“When you got Janet’s attention, you felt like the sun was shining on you,” she recalled. She is incredibly present in the film and in her paintings, she said, “because she was a very present person.”

Fish transferred that intensity to her still-life paintings, as many interviewed for the film described.

One assistant reflected, “She just brought life to anything she painted.”

In part, that comes from her focus on luminosity, how light plays over reflective surfaces, vividly coloured objects, and layers of transparency.

Her assistants recount how, after carefully constructing a still-life from her store of objects, she would consider how light operated.

Then, she undertook the painting by concentrating on one part of the still-life at a time, whichever area was illuminated by the sun coming through the window. She was chasing the light, capturing its presence.

Although the panoply of Fish’s compositions will depart Masterworks, some will stay behind. Masterworks recently acquired Parakeet and Tropical Fruit from 1991.

For those who were unable to attend the exhibit on the island, it will now travel to several venues in the US, bringing the exhibit and its attention to Bermuda’s light to new audiences.

The film, Janet Fish: Catching the Light, will be available, too, in the near future.

According to McGuire, after its run at international film festivals in the upcoming months, it will appear elsewhere on public television or streaming sites.

Fish’s death was a deeply felt loss for the American art world. Thanks to the travelling exhibit and the film, however, her striking presence will endure.