ARTIST STATEMENT

For JANE FRANCIS, who worked for decades in graphic design with rules, grids and restraints, to live fully now means to express through mark making her own ways of seeing and feeling raw beauty. She works with the memory of shapes, forms, and objects to bring out big energy in subjects like bones, cocoons, chandeliers, and dance. Working in a neutral palette with graphite or paint, on paper, wood or canvas, she tends to confront liveliness with large scale work that reflects a sense of awe. There’s also strong evidence of the physicality required in her work – reaching, twisting, turning, pulling, and stretching. Her uninterrupted marks are a kinetic record that expand the dialogue between abstraction and representation. Touchstone words for Francis are curiosity, wonder, tenderness, tenacity, and play. It is these emotions she aims to invoke with her work, opening a door between how she sees things and how they may be seen anew by the viewer.