BIO
Jane Ball is an artist, educator, researcher and cultural organiser. Her hybridised artwork investigates creative ecologies, and enacts, observes, and critiques relational creative practices. Jane has presented her work nationally and internationally. Recent creative projects include: Fiddleheads and Fronds exhibited as part of Six Artists Celebrate Enid Marx at Compton Verney Art Gallery; a research-stewardship residency at Venice Biennale commissioned by the British Council; Julian Henry Beck: Artist, Engineer, Photographer, a performative installation at Birmingham Open Media; Liporello and Senza Filli as part of L’Ultima Cena at Refettorio di San Michele in Pescia, Italy.
Jane currently leads the Fine Art course at Coventry University in her role as Course Director and advocates for Fine Art nationally and internationally as a member of the steering group for the UK National Association of Fine Art Education (NAFAE) and regionally on the board for New Art West Midlands (NAWM).
ABOUT THE ART
Sometimes an object is familiar long before its significance is revealed to us.
I’ve walked a lot recently, over the last year, as many have, through woodlands, finding solace amongst trees and looking down at the floor have become particularly aware of the ferns. When I was young my mother gave me a gift of a small wooden thimble holder patterned with ferns, it fitted neatly in my hand. I accepted it for what it was.
I’m interested in how things that sit at the margins of the self can, in a moment, provide a portal to both expand and collapse our experiences. And we find ourselves connected through them to new historical understandings, contemporary experiences, and future potentialities.
My artwork is a scattering of interpretations of this small piece of wooden fern ware through the forest at Dalby like dispersed seeds or a rhizomatic root system and containers or laboratories of invention.