A Thing of Shreds and Patches

A Thing of Shreds and Patches. Solo Exhibition by Jane Woodhall. Until 13th March 2023.

This exhibition speaks of a profound love of the New Zealand Landscape as well as an abiding interest in the deep cultural roots of our society.

Jane has had a career creating and maintaining the wardrobes for leading performing arts organisations including The NZ Ballet  as well as being involved with many major film productions. She brings her deep love of textiles and well honed technical skills to  her personal practice.

Jane Woodhall likes to be the invisible force behind the needle and brush, creating records of vast scenes in space and time that are portals for our intimate human viewpoint to carry us there. This collection of her works primarily explore her being in environments - either her immediate local beloved Te Horo Beach or places in her memory imagination that she recalls in works like Ravenna 3 or Coastal City.

The sense of who Jane Woodhall is as a person comes through in these carefully composed and intricately crafted works that reveal how in tune with her spaces the artist is - the smallest of detail and the most important essences are captured and transformed in her created works.

Jane has a low key way of describing her own practice drawing on the words of Robertson Davies:

“Allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. Some like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.” -   Robertson Davies.

A great description of the tatty peacock’s tail of stuff I carry about with me. - Jane Woodhall.