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"I have always been a nature lover, from an early childhood wandering heather clad hillsides overlooking picturesque lochs in the Western Highlands of Scotland to the Western District of Victoria riding horses, watching birds and observing the habits of sheep and cows. And horses of course.
Summer holidays were at Port Fairy and Port Campbell and when I wasn’t in it, I spent hours staring at the ocean. I was an outdoors kid, but an avid reader, and also was spending time with pencils and paints and sketchbooks.
I moved to Melbourne to attend University. Latrobe suited me with its natural surroundings and many eucalypts. Studies in Biology gave way to Humanities and I learned to write an essay.
Pretty much the first thing I did was join the Uni diving club which started a love affair with being underwater and the marvellous creatures. We had annual trips to Queensland Islands. Diving was my main sport for many years, which gave way to sail boarding when I was working in advertising and living on Beaconsfield Parade in Middle Park.
After university I taught for four years, with lots of dive trips around the country from the west and up and down the east coast. I decided teaching wasn’t my main vocation and put myself through Graphic Design at Swinburne University. This lead to working in advertising in St Kilda Road during the 80’s – a very heady time to be in it. I was spending weekends at Phillip Island and when not sail boarding I was playing around with art, especially with pastels. I started showing my work at their Easter Art Shows and finally had my own first solo at a small gallery on the Island.
At the same time I was visiting many of the High Street Armadale galleries, buying books on all our great artists, and starting a small collection. As with our burgeoning music scene, I’ve always been more than happy with the quality and quantity of Australian artists to admire.
In the early 90’s I was taken up by Libby Edwards in Melbourne showing my oils on canvas and smaller pastels. I was spending a lot of time in Queensland – diving and sailing. I was also taken up by Helen Wiltshire Galleries on Hamilton Island, Mission Beach and Port Douglas – showing bright colourful oils inspired by tropical land and seascapes.
I have exhibited throughout Australia over the years, and a couple of forays overseas – showing in New York and Belgium. Quite a few overseas clients have collected my work. I was also part of the Wall Street Exchange art program for some years, showing in Qantas Club lounges throughout Australia which was really successful for me.
I spent about ten years showing in Dalkeith in Perth which meant a lot of travel to the west which I love. I like my works to capture the essence of a time and place, drawing on a well-honed artist eye. "I cannot paint what I have not seen or felt on my skin."
I exhibited in Sydney for a time – particularly as I started sailing. Coincidentally I’ve sailed for about as long as I’ve made art my vocation. I have exhibited in Brisbane and most recently in Hobart.
I am proficient in most media – when I teach workshops I introduce students to pencils of different weight, colour pencils, watercolour pencils, watercolour, gouache and acrylic paints.
But I love oils.
I love the density, the ability to create impasto, to thin down to translucent washes and have developed specific techniques for my later works. I love inland reds, ocean blues and for some time have been entranced by trying to capture sunlight sparkles on water. Graphic design studies led to understanding of colour and encouraged a simplified design within the canvas
A strong sense of horizon is often a feature in my works. And I have been painting the land from an aerial perspective from way before drones. This probably started when, flying from Alice Springs to Uluru for the first time, I was invited to stay in the front of the Fokker Friendship by the pilot and had an eagle eye view of the rock coming in to land. It was like being in the front of a Kombi!! (This was before 9/11) I had gouache and large sheets of watercolour paper with me and couldn’t wait to get into my resort room and start capturing what I had seen and experienced!
Travelling and seeing places is very important. I go armed with cameras and sketch books and materials. I am not known for travelling light!
On a yoga trip to Broome I despaired that we had so much on I was never going to see any hinterland outback. I ended up hiring a helicopter for an hour! I made a bunch of sketches of the subject matter I liked – riverscapes winding through the landscape, aerial groupings of trees and their shadows, stock trails winding their way towards a dam, the regular patterns of trees interspersed through the landscape due to scarcity of resources. ‘I reckon I can show you a bit of that in an hour’, the pilot said. Once up he asked me - door off and well strapped in - how high do you want to be? "Err how high is this? I asked. We eventually figured out about 500 feet was a good height for what I wanted…
It took me a year or so to recoup the hire fee for the chopper but it was well worth it!
An aerial perspective was my largest ever commission – for a new Learning Centre at Tertiary Agri College Marcus Oldham in Geelong. 3 metres x 1.2 metres of Western District paddocks full of sheep with dams and windbreaks and the Grampians distant on the horizon.
I enter a number of art prizes every year.
I have been a finalist in the Lloyd Rees Landscape Art Prize in Hobart in 2019, the Glover Landscape Prize and The Bay of Fires Prize also in Tasmania.
I have been a finalist in The Mission To Seafarers Victoria Maritime Prize pretty much every year since it started 15 years ago. It has been a very important prize for me.
I won the prize itself in 2014, won People’s Choice in 2009, was Commended in 2017 and Highly Commended in 2016.
(I have a love of all things ocean.)
Coming runner up in the Lloyd Rees Prize in Hobart won me residency at Salamanca Arts Centre in 2019 and I have since shown three times in Salamanca Arts Centre.
I have been a member of the VAS since November 2020. Though living on the Bellarine and not able to attend as many functions as I would like, I like to push myself to enter as many of their Exhibitions as possible. I was Highly Commended at the VAS Maritime Exhibition December 2022.
I like to think my dramatic though meditative oils on canvas of wind and water, sea and sky, essentially bring the outside in. I like to bring calm into peoples lives.
I am passionate about encouraging others to see the beauty in nature and the natural environment."
EDUCATION
B.A. Dip. Ed. Latrobe University
Diploma of Graphic Design, Swinburne Institute of Victoria
Jane Flowers
November 2024
https://www.janeflowers.com
FB / insta @janeflowersartist
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