My key influences are Islamic geometry, with its idea that geometric and written art work is sacred, and provides a bridge between the material and spiritual world. I became fascinated by the occurrence of symmetry within the natural world. This led me to research more closely how scientists gain knowledge through looking and developing increasingly powerful microscopes and telescopes.
 
Astronomy and Theoretical Physics are disciplines that continue the search for meaning at what is at the edge of observable, and what lies beyond. I try to create in my work a sense of something almost impossible to see.  My surfaces are ambiguous because I hope pull a viewer in closer as they attempt to resolve the surface. The drawings are always concerned with a subtle revealing and the viewer’s interpretation.
 
I nearly always want to draw on large, beautiful surfaces. The paper itself has a texture that can suggest the sort of marks I might make. Currently I am using a simple pencil to gradually "stain" my surface, but Dark Matter was made by using a minute brush, dipped into ink, then applied to the surface as close together as seemed possible, each one a slightly different shape as the pressure of my hand, or body position slowly changed as I traversed the paper.  I started top left, and "wrote" left to right, in lines down the page, much as I would write a story.
 
My work is rooted in the natural world, but clearly has none of the look of a traditional landscape. I am not describing what we can seen around us, but rather revealing a hidden landscape, that is just as real, but  perhaps microscopically small or a hugely distant, or both.
 
I use photography as well as drawing, and intend to experiment more with early photography techniques, but find the tempo of drawing suits my contemplative message. For me, drawing seems to allow a slow accrual of an image, marking time as well as space. I also rather like the sheer "trickery" of the optical illusion, which will probably keep me on the "page".
 
For jotta's Land Without A Map at the Affordable Art Fair I am showcasing "Dark Matter", a large Diptych, comprising 2 Giclee Prints.  The drawing from which I made the print grew over several months.  I have chosen to hang it as a Diptych, as the work itself is concerned with repetition, differences and symmetries. I never really want to say too much about individual pieces, as the nature of my work is meditative, and so it’s really about what the viewer is contemplating rather than me.

See more of Jane's work in her jotta portfolio