Mixed media, fabric, oil, wax, pigments and glitter
Framed, 45 x 46 cm
Edition 15/50
This work is from Jane Gray's Heritage Series that she started in 2020. This painting reflects on life, the scratches, weaves, dents, impasto, bleeding, and shadows. The original is painted in Oil, Cold Wax, precious pigments. There is a nod here to a Scottish Ancestry.
"This small body of paintings has involved a lot of genetic research and self discovery. It's been like a 'coming out' for me as my adored adoptive mother died last year and I have felt the time was right to examine why I have been so preoccupied in my artwork with the composition of the face, and inherent family likeness. Becoming a grandmother really spurred this interest, almost fixation. If you look back at my career it's all been about the facial features, and now I can own them.
This series of paintings are on a very small scale as they are rather private, very layered and tactile, scratched and scraped back. They started with a tartan background, worked in oil, cold wax, pigments and glitter. They are all self portraits, myself at various stages of this emotive discovery."