Jane Flint • October 1 - 31
Jane Flint creates ceramic sculptures that explore the quiet intensity of human connection with animals, with myth, and the exploration of our inner selves. She explains, “I’m drawn to moments of stillness and intimacy, where imagined worlds feel emotionally real.”
She takes inspiration from children’s stories, toys, historic and cultural artefacts. Many of her figures have a totem-like presence. She likes the idea that she is creating sacred objects emblematic of spirit beings, that become guardian spirits for the people who eventually give them a home.
“I believe we have an innate connection to nature and all living things which is a fundamental part of being human. In my work, I aim to express this with humour or charm that people naturally connect with and feel drawn to.”
When sculpting she works directly from images of the animals, they become anthropomorphised as she develops implied narrative. The juxtaposition of animals to objects, other creatures create conversations in the realm of magical realism. Companion animals become masks and masks become the extension of self, inviting questions about identity, instinct, and transformation.
She likes to work with texture, gesture, and surface to evoke a sense of time, imbued with emotion - each piece carrying its own quiet story. Her aim is to create work that that “looks like it has been unearthed or discovered in an old attic or junk shop, as though unearthed from a forgotten fable."
Jane arranges her work into series as a way of organizing her thoughts, but themes and ideas thread seamlessly through all her work. Her ‘Story Keepers’ are vessels, which she hopes will become family touchstones and keepers of family stories, love notes, silly jokes, memories and superstitions.
Her ‘Kinfolk’ emerged around lockdown - the strangeness of it being such a dreadful time for many, but such a beautiful summer. She remembers the quiet, and how with no traffic nature came into her element. “I remember so much birdsong and seeing foxes wandering down the normally busy street. I felt a much stronger connection to nature and felt we were meant to learn something.” Moving on from the need to learn from nature her ’Storytellers’ are usually a pairing of a human and animal. We are not sure who is telling the story to who.