Current Artist’s Statement
Jane Wheeler
June 2023
Pilgrim trails, ritual walks;
voyages in, memory maps.
I am trying to paint about being in the landscape, quite specifically in the Scottish landscape where I live, to invent a way of recalling with paint, be it acrylic, oil or watercolour, combining imagined geographies and interior paths with the physical matter of gesso, pigment, binder, linen, paper or panel.
Currently I am bringing the human figure back into my work, and working from watercolour to acrylic, combining an abstract flatness and mark-making with the flow of colour across the surface, over collaged paper and fine unbleached handkerchief linen (with raw edges fraying) glued onto the canvas. My figures seem to be undergoing some sort of trial, by walking, by exposure, expressed by posture and paint, usually from the back, or on the edge of the paintings. Words drown and are reborn amongst the layers, sometimes written or scratched in paint, sometimes torn from printed pages and glued on, painted over. Part of my practice is the written word, and Dante’s dark wood is referred to in this body of work.