Artist statement
Jane Oldfield is developing work concerning flying. This provides a focus which connects the variety of her visual work – mainly painting on a variety of surfaces, but also 3D pieces with wire and cutouts.
Flying has always been an obsession for mankind. We have only conquered flight in the last 100 years but it has already become mundane.
This theme has opened the romance of maps and aerial photography, and the void of the unsaid in family history. (Her uncle was a photo-reconnaissance spitfire pilot in WW2.) This provided the material for the work produced during a residency at Matt Roberts Gallery, Vyner Street last summer (see ‘This is not the gallery’).
Also Jane has taken photographs from the windows of airliners for 25 years and last autumn a collage using these provided the basis of an Artbelow poster at Regent’s Park Tube Station and another was exhibited in Barcelona.
Jane’s experience of flying in airliners, small planes and helicopters, but most of all learning to fly gliders, has made her very conscious of two things. First that air is on a par with water as a very powerful, reactive force which reacts with light to mediate colour. Secondly it makes one want to play with the up/down, to curve and swing the horizon and eliminate it altogether. Jane has always used perceived space in her work – to visually explore in front and behind the working surface, principally using colour cues.
At its simplest, Jane investigates different ways of flying by different types of birds, insects and other creatures - and machines - by drawing them. She also draws at Heathrow in the Terminals.
Jane was chair of the Riverside Artists Group (RAG) for 3 years while they had exhibitions in China and Spain as well as London.– now she is Treasurer .( This group also includes 4 other Axis members.)
Current and forthcoming events
- May - July 2013: Stars in Your Eyes, Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London (more info)
Solo exhibitions
- 2006 'Cars & Colour', Barga, Tuscany, Italy
- 2006 'Cars & Colour', Waterloo Gallery, London
- 2005 Kunst-Event, AntwerpExpo, Antwerp
- 2003 Manchester Art Shows, Urbis, Manchester
- 2003 Artlink, Hull
- 2002 Fresh Art 2002, Business Design Centre, London
Group exhibitions
- 2013 Stars in Your Eyes, Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT
- 2013 Animamus Art Salon: A Living Gallery, Culture Fix, New York, USA
- 2012 LDN/BCN, Untitled Gallery, Barcelona (more info)
- 2012 La Petite Muerte, Drawers Gallery, Dalston (more info)
- 2012 ALAS Summer Residency Exhibition, ALAS Gallery, 25b Vyner St London E2 9DG
- 2012 Fusion, Institute of Physics, 76 Portland Place, London W1
- 2011 40 x 40, Riverside Studios, Crisp Rd, Hammersmith, London W6 9RL
- 2011 Now and Then, Museum Municipale de Ourense, Ourense, Spain (more info)
- 2010 6th Culture & Art Festival of Songzhuang, China, Sunshine International Art Museum (SIAM), Beijing (more info)
- 2010 Works on Canvas, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith (more info)
- 2010 London Calling, Museo Ramon Ma Aller, Lalin, Galicia, Spain
- 2009 Drawings, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London (more info)
- 2009 Febuary/March Exhibition, Architect's Gallery, Teddington, London
- 2008 Recent Works: Riverside Artists Group, The Knapp Gallery, Regent College, Regents Park, London
- 2007 'Black,White and Re(a)d All Over', Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London (more info)
- 2006 RAG Show, Knapp Gallery, Regents College, Regents Park, London
- 2006 RAG Show, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, West London
- 2002 RAG Group Show, Museo Municipal, Ourense, Spain
- 2001 The City, Whitechapel Contemporary, East London
- 2000 Open, CafeGallery, Bermondsey, East London
- 1997 Cadaques Mini Print International, Spain, France, England
- 1996 RAG Group Show, Museo Municipal, Ourense, Spain
Live/Performance
- 2013 The Magic Shop, Meantime Space, 197-199 Stoke Newington High St, N16 0LH
Residencies
- 2012 1st ALAS (Artist-led Art Society) Residency, ALAS Gallery, 25b Vyner Street, London (more info)
Publications
- 2012 This is Not The Gallery
Personal website
