Jane Rushton: B.A., M.Phil (Lancaster)

The work that I make explores the disciplines of drawing, painting, collage and digital as a way of investigating the world around me. Themes of fragility, transience and endurance provide a focus, with interplay between micro and macro producing elusive and contemplative imagery that leaves room for interpretation.

Drawing on the processes that create the features and characteristics of the natural environment observed during field trips, studio investigations reflect and play out these processes on paper and canvas through a series of tests, versions and experiments.

More recently, though not exclusively, the geographical focus has been on remote Northern areas including the Arctic, where I have undertaken extended field trips, either alone, with other artists, or with scientists. The Arctic environment, as well as having a raw beauty and spiritual essence, is emblematic in terms of concerns with climate change, and it provides the focus of much scientific work that tries to understand the processes at play, and their significance. I have become interested in drawing on the knowledge and methodologies of science as a means of expanding my approach to material investigations, with the ultimate aim of making visually poetic work that provokes a different type of engagement; of seeing, valuing, knowing and understanding.

I have many years experience as a lecturer in Fine Art, and 20th Century Art History and Culture.

I am a landscape artist, although on first glance at my work that may not be immediately apparent. I take a questioning approach to my subject, exploring the subtleties and nuances within the landscape through the materials I use.

My methods usually involve using a variety and layering of media, echoing the complexity and interactions within the natural environment. I am often looking on a very intimate scale, working to reveal the largely unobserved and insignificant. I am drawn to explore the effects of those natural processes that are constantly occurring, like the growth and regrowth of lichen; the gradual erosion of rock; the wash lines left on the beach by the ebb and flow of the tide, or the changes that occur with freezing and melting of ice. In quiet contemplation of these I feel that there is a connection made and my place in the world confirmed.

Jane Rushton. November 2015

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