Jane Strother: Borderlands

Borderlands refers to land boundaries on a human walking scale; a stretch of coastline or field margins, travelled and pondered. As a keen walker, Jane Strother explores landscapes, noting and recording marks of human activity or intervention, evidence of changing use. 

Subjects are rooted in these landscapes, including the south west coast path of Devon and Cornwall, extensive areas of fringing salt marshes in Essex and local field boundaries in Oxford. 

Collecting imagery from observation, whether by drawing or photography is an important part of Jane’s practice. Currently, the process involves making quick line or shape drawings while on the move, or taking photographs, as an aide memoir. Selections from this ‘notebook’ form an integral part in the building of a new ‘space’ on the canvas.  

The decision making is visible, an informed process of adding, altering, removing, is seen. Each change, which can mean switching and turning panels from one side to another is made in relation to the context, the painting as an object.  

The final image is mediated through aesthetic considerations of composition, colour proportion and value relationships, resulting in degrees of abstraction, always with an adherence to the original truth.  

Click here to see a selection of works in the exhibition