Jane Lewis's Profile

From: United Kingdom
Joined: November 01, 2007
www.janelewis-artprints.com www.janelewisartist.com www.janelewisart.com

About janelewis:

I began drawing and painting in early childhood and have continued to work as an artist all my adult life. My work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the UK and also internationally. Paintings and prints are in a number of public collections and numerous private collections. Articles about my work and reproductions of my images have appeared in a number of art catalogues, books and periodicals, most significantly Bloodaxe Books, who have used more than 20 paintings as covers for their poetry publications. I have been artist in residence with Kent Opera, was awarded a Fellowship in Drawing by the Henry Moore Foundation, and have recently received arts development grants from Arts Council England and the Oppenheim-Moores Memorial Trust.

Over the years I have worked in watercolour, etching, most drawing media, pastel, digital media - and constantly in oil on canvas, which is my first love. My pictures often present images both ambiguous and surreal. I am influenced by early Italian painting and the ancient painting and sculpture of the Romans and Etruscans - I now visit Italy every year to study its art and soak up its atmosphere and culture. Classical Indian and Japanese art, Vermeer, Chardin, Balthus, Picasso, Juan Gris, the photography of Lee Miller, and Paula Rego are other enthusiasms.

My work is figurative and possibly narrative, though the narrative is usually my own - there can be a sense of a story within, of subversion through painted illusion. My figure and still life paintings and prints are a combination of actual and invented people and objects arranged into a composition of the imagination. I take ideas from anything that catches my eye, also from particularly evocative reading.

As well as painting I am currently creating original digitally generated images. These images have been created with Photoshop software which allows me to work intuitively and fluidly, drawing and painting directly on the computer screen via a graphics tablet, and importing other scanned elements such as textures and samples from my own drawings and paintings. I think that digital technology has revolutionized the creation of original fine art prints , and working this way is as demanding and sophisticated as other artistic media. The images are original and do not exist in any other form.