9 Minutes with XL Catlin Art Prize Finalist - Jane Hayes Greenwood

Current XL Catlin Art Prize finalist, Jane Hayes Greenwood is an exceptional artist whose work explores ideas around the nature of objects. Through Greenwoods work, she aims to define the relationship between us as individuals and un-human objects, something that is becoming more and more relevant as our future is pending. Alongside her own work Greenwood also teaches Fine Art Painting and runs the project space: Block 336.

RL: Jane, tell us a little about your craft. Could you give me a brief explanation or definition of what you think your art is?

JHG: My work explores ideas around the nature of objects. Over the last year I have moved from looking at objects found during archaeological excavations - things with deep histories, to looking at digitally modelled objects - 3D rendered things that have a referent in the real world but have a very different physicality, materiality and history from what they are representing.

RL: How has your art developed during your career?

JHG: Painting continues to be at the core of my practice. I have also been making sculptural objects over the last few years. These have occupied different positions in my practice: sometimes acting as props for the work, other times becoming the work itself. I feel like my approach is always very painterly in terms of composition and approach to palette: I construct things with an attitude that derives from traditions in Painting. I am also currently developing an installation for the XL Catlin Art Prize 2016 that has a direct link to the painting I’m making.

RL: How has your art impacted your life and perspective?

JHG: It is hard to say really. It is very much central to my life and the way in which I organise my time. Alongside making my own work, I teach on a Fine Art Painting course, part-time, and run an artist-led project space and studio provider called Block 336, which I co-founded with an artist I met on my undergraduate degree. Block 336 is in the basement of a Brutalist building in Brixton that we came across whilst looking for spaces for a pop-up exhibition, we secured the space for a year with the idea of hosting exhibitions and events in which we could work with emerging and established artists. One of the aims was to establish something that operated separately from the commercial art world, giving artists the time and space to make new ambitious work in a generous space, which is relatively rare in London. It (Block) officially opened in March 2012 so we've been open just over four years now and have presented seventeen exhibitions and about twenty-five events. It is a real privilege to work with artists and curators developing ideas and new projects and it certainly feeds my own practice.

RL: What are the particular methods you use to create your pieces?

JHG: Research is crucial to my practice, the ideas that are central to the work continue to evolve so I am constantly researching new subjects and ideas in order to unpack as much content as possible to open up possibilities for my work. In terms of my paintings, I bring a variety of source material together, often in quite an open and unplanned way as I like there to be an element of discovery during the working process. I work with both acrylic, oil and spray paint on linen and canvas and I vary the way in which I use paint. Pace is also really important so a linear representational image may be made quickly, combined with abstract elements made slowly and other elements that are made in a careful and laborious manner. Alongside the content of the work it is important to me that there is a complexity to the surface of a painting.

RL: How has your home and personal life influenced your work?

My mum was a serious hoarder, I grew up in a house that was very full of ‘stuff’. Her fascination with things doesn't follow the standard in terms of a hierarchy of taste and value, what one person might think of as being useless rubbish, she might recognise as having a potential purpose, beauty or significance of some kind. This has certainly shaped my interest in objects and collecting, but I’ve noticed people describe themselves as hoarders but usually they’re not! I think most people understand the impulse to obtain a thing and the difficulty in getting rid of it when it feels to have particular value. Desire, attachment and value I find really interesting and complex, ‘things’ that continue to have a place in the ideas I explore.

Jane was speaking exclusively with Roshan Langely in the second of After Nyne's interview series with this year's Catlin Art Prize finalists. A panel of judges will select one artist to receive an award of £5,000 at a private ceremony on Tuesday 17th May. An exhibition of all finalists work will be on display from Thursday 5th – Sunday 22nd May 2016 at the London Newcastle Project Space, Shoreditch.