Jane Gifford lives in London,
England, and has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including
shows in London, Manchester and New York. Her work can be seen at the
Hirschl Contemporary Art Gallery in London and at her web site (www.janegifford.co.uk/).
Artist's Statement
All my work is based on my dreams,
which I have been recording, almost daily, in written form for 12
years. Each piece, either painting, drawing, "book" or
installation, usually describes an element of my dreams for a specific
period of time, a few days, a month, a year, several years. I
generally work in series.
Much recent work concentrates on
objects, which appear in the dreams, removed from their original
narrative context and given an iconic, symbolic quality. In a series
of paintings, "Dream Inventories," one for each month, 49
objects (the 1 or 2 most significant from each night's dreaming) float
in chronological order in a grid composition on a field of colour. The
objects are all painted in monochrome except for the objects that I
remembered as being a specific colour, which appear in that colour. In
larger 'Dream Inventory' paintings I select more objects per night.
Sometimes I include text, often the most significant word from the
written diary to describe each object.
In "Dream Paintings 2001," a
series of very small narrative paintings, three for each week of the
year, I focus on the event itself, depicting a key moment from an
interesting dream narrative. They are monochrome (Payne's grey) except
for specifically remembered colours. The paintings are closely linked
to my drawing practice, and as a collection form a storyboard to my
dream-life and subconscious for the year.
I am very interested in the language of
dreams, its richness and unpredictability, creativity and humor,
images and events which reoccur and those which seem to come from
nowhere.
My work is often fairly large but
consisting of a number of tiny images - the viewer has to get close to
'read' the images and text, in an intimate almost voyeuristic manner.
The work is very personal, though hidden behind a layer of the
sub-conscious and because of the universal nature of dreams,
accessible.
Hirschl Gallery, London --
installation of "Dream Paintings 2001"