Jane Lewis is a painter and printmaker, and has devoted most of her life to visual art - from childhood, through college and teaching, to practising exclusively as a freelance artist.
Jane has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the UK and also internationally. Participating in the ground-breaking “Women’s Images of Men” at the ICA in London in 1980 was an early turning point in her career, and showing in its sequel “Pandora’s Box” while at the same time pursuing a 12 month residency with Kent Opera in 1985 gave her work wider exposure which enabled her to paint full-time. She was later awarded a Fellowship in Drawing by the Henry Moore Foundation which attracted the attention of Portal Gallery in London, with whom she has exhibited since 1993. Her paintings and prints are in a number of public collections and numerous private collections, and she has published limited edition prints both independently and with Obsession Publishing (now Red Dot Gallery) and Christies Contemporary Art London. Her work has also featured on book covers, and in art catalogues and magazines. She has recently received arts development awards from Arts Council England and the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust, and has been commissioned by Standard Chartered Bank.
Jane's work is largely studio-based, and while her working methods and materials could be seen as traditional (she works in oils on canvas, in pastel, drawing and printmaking) her subject matter is wide-ranging, challenging and of its time. She deals pictorially with the ambiguous and surreal, prompting questions of time, place and reason. Her work is figurative and possibly narrative, though the story is usually her own. It encompasses issues of gender and the masks we all wear every day - there is often a sense of a story within, of subversion through painted illusion, sometimes a suggestion of subtlety of sexuality, or a simmering violence concealed beneath apparent calm.
More work by Jane Lewis, including original paintings, can be seen at:
Jane Lewis Artist.com
Portal Gallery
Westcliffe Gallery