Jane's work is driven by her interest in what makes us human. She was brought up deeply embedded in the Cambridgeshire fenland and was fascinated from an early age by British folklore, traditions and vernacular crafts. Daughter to a sculptor, she was encouraged to work with materials and engage critically with form. Childhood holidays to ancient sites such as Carnac and Stonehenge brought ideas, symbols and form closer together and she extended her research into how ways of seeing the world linked and differed, looking for commonality. This led to majoring in art, religious studies and sociology in her BED honours degree; a thread that has persisted in her career as educationalist and artist and took her to Africa to research clay as a spiritual material.
Jane deepened her understanding of major religions by ordaining as an Interfaith Minister. This deepened her exploration of our personal relationship to the sacred, unseen and mythic. She looks for connections through story, symbol, form and pattern, often referring to her travels through Africa or neolithic finds in her local environment, re-interpreting them in form and surface. Her latest large scale objects are enigmatic, alluding to both ritual and function whilst suggesting spiritual meaning and antiquity. They are both primal and poetic; strong unadorned forms that aim to look beyond what is culturally determined to the creative human spirit. A sense of the migratory human nature permeates raising questions of beauty, prejudice, identity and direction in a multicultural world. Her work is both hopeful and reflective.
Using clay as medium adds a visceral connection to the natural world. Deeply rooted in human history, the ancient practice of coiling is endlessly versatile. It’s a meditative process that fosters intuitive response. Jane’s long engagement with the process has brought a philosophical relationship with the material; by low-firing her pieces and rejecting glazes she aims to keep the material alive and potent. Different clays give differing emotional content. Surfaces are the products of labour, using ancient processes. These enigmatic, contemporary and understated approaches to markmaking combine to bring simple vibrancy that bridges time and culture.