Jane German *
Jane was born in the village of Nanpantan on the edge of the Charnwood Forest near Loughborough in Leicestershire. When she was ten we moved to Packington, a small rural farming village where her mother was born and her family had lived for many generations. Most of her mother’s relatives were farmers and her great grandfather George German was a Land Agent and Auctioneer. With her four brothers she grew up with freedom to roam in the farmland and countryside and they all loved theanimals, birds and countryside. Greatly encouraged by my mother who was an untrained but gifted Botanical water colourist, she went to study at Loughborough College of Art. There, for four years, she specialised in Printed Textiles for her National Diploma in Design and then gained for her Art Teacher’s Certificate at Brighton College of Art.
She married, had three children and worked as an art teacher for over thirty years in schools and colleges in London and West Sussex until in 1992 she moved from Chichester to live in Starston, South Norfolk where she was able to pursue her own work which at that time was focussed mainlyon the painting of cattle, wild birds and other animals. Her work has been shown in galleries and exhibitions throughout East Anglia and also in London and West Sussex.
When studying Printed Textile Design there was a strong emphasis on observation drawing of plants and natural forms, and this exploration is present in some of the very detailed still life work which she is currently working on. Jane paints in oils on linen canvas and occasionally board, and she draws in soft pastels. As a child she was always scanning the ground on the lookout for an irresistible pebble, piece of polished glass, dried seed head, a shard of decorated pottery, a stray marble, bird nest or a close encounter with a Jay on finding a bright blue-flecked feather. This collecting habit has stayed with here and has fed into some of her latest Still Life paintings which include found objects assembled inbowls, boxes and containers. Pebbles, feathers, a bird’s nest, buttons, things dug up in the garden such as a doll’s shoe, bits of clay pipe, buttons, marbles; or an ammonite found on Lyme Regis beach whilst visiting family and shells bought and piled into glass storage jars. Little treasures that caught her eye that she was compelled to pocket and collect.
These ‘bits and pieces’ evoke memories and connections with time and place past and are part of her story.
