Jane Brooks

I have a fascination for contemporary art quilts, and a love of cloth, this has been the stimuli, for developing my recent practice as a printmaker.

I take inspiration from landscape and the world around me, celebrating this through the daily action of walking. Short journeys, which can be about the physical and material reality of the path, the meditative motion of the walk, or the inspiration found in a distant horizon. On these walks I often carry a sketchbook, stopping and drawing as I walk. I believe that the intensity of looking and the experience of being 'out of doors', are reflected in the marks made in sketchbooks, and that this visual language is carried through to finished work.

The drawings are then taken into the studio. Working from the sketchbooks I begin to evolve the drawings away from a representational image into abstract and abstracted printing that celebrates colour, mark and materials. The processes involved in printmaking then impose their own influences, and these become a part of the design I'm making. This is a positive and creative time
that is about the delight of building collagraph plates and then inking them, followed by the excitement of printing and the moment of seeing what is revealed. From a background in art and design, printing onto fabric has come about because of an interest I have in quilts. As a printmaker who works with collagraph, I find similarities between building plates for printing and the layering and stitching techniques found in quilt making. I am also fascinated by the way the quilt, a domestic object constructed to provide warmth and comfort, has become a medium for art.