Artel Studio Trust

Jayne Sandys-Renton

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I am painter, working on a large-scale in mixed media or oils using figurative themes.

I have been painting for many years; I was awarded a ‘distinction’ in my Visual Art MA, and have works in collections in the USA and UK. 

Affected by the space they find themselves in, figures move and merge with it. Through expressive line and texture, my paintings investigate the relationship between the space and the figure.

In 1998, I began studying the contemporary American photographer Francesca Woodman (1958-1981) whose self-portraits reflect a growing bodily awareness and sexuality mixed with spirituality and innocence, within formal compositions that are direct yet enormously subtle. I produced paintings that were a conversation, or even collaboration, with this young artist who I’d never met. The work has many compositional similarities, but there it stops, as I used Woodman’s images to investigate a broader sense of the environment and womanhood.

In the last 12 months I have been developing a new theme in the work – space. This was introduced when I started to collaborate with the poet Stephanie Norgate, and began to place figures within the buildings and spaces that we’d visited. One such space is a Runcton folly tower, on a hill near Funtington, a space that has an eerie atmosphere combined with a real sense of history. Sometimes I would include lines from Stephanie’s poems, making the work conversational as well as introspective.

The most recent of my works come from photos taken in a French forest that had been stripped bare by a forest fire. This was an extraordinary place made of charcoal; and within it is a young woman, looking white and vulnerable as she moves and merges with the charred fir trees. Through expressive line (including lots of charcoal) and texture, these paintings investigate the relationship between this extraordinary space and this young woman.

I am continuing my work with the poet Stephanie Norgate, and will be showing work at the Otter Gallery, University of Chichester, in February 2010.

www.Jstudio.co.uk

In January 2004 I set up the ‘Chichester Art School for Young People’, runing regular art classes for children with a passion for Art, aged 11-16 (alternate Wednesdays and Thursdays 5-7pm). I teach ‘very able pupils’ on behalf of WSCC, and run ‘widening participation’ classes on behalf of the University of Chichester.