J a n e   G i f f o r d 

 

 

 

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"
Hirschl Gallery, London --  installation of "Dream Paintings 2001"

 

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2002 ASD Dream Art Exhibition

19th Annual International Conference for the Association for the Study of Dreams
June 15 - 19, 2002
at Tufts University, Medford, Boston, Massachusetts

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