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Jane
Evans by
Tracy Neal Life is bold, bright, exuberant and lyrical according to Jane Evans, and that's the way she paints it. "For me definitely, art is life and life is art, because that's how I see life; not as in the isolated sense that when I walk over to my studio and I paint that that is my art, but in a total sense."
Art to Jane is visual communication: "I see it as a direct emotional hit really, and if it doesn't happen, well, you have failed.... If you don't speak to your viewer then it becomes a rather indulgent occupation." "I've always followed my own star. I didn't fit the art school mould and I knew that from the beginning. "After a year at Ilam I went to art school in London and I was bored to sobs, so I left as I felt there was much more going on outside the walls of the school than there ever was inside them." And
she is happy, living life by her own rules. "One of the great
things about my situation has always been I'm not beholden to anyone
-- I can say what I like on things I believe strongly in and feel
passionately about, without anyone having the power to rein me in."
Jane, recently awarded an ONZM (Order of New Zealand Merit) for services to painting, is in the increasingly difficult situation of having to juggle outside attention with the need to continue her work. Ever the diplomat, she appears to enjoy the contact in return for what others give her; "I think one of the huge bonuses of my painting is the contact with so many different, interesting people from all walks of life, from all over the world. There is something special in the exchange really." At the same time Jane says she feels privileged to live in Nelson, where the area's beauty and remoteness offer her life balance. The lifestyle also allows precious time for her other passion, gardening: "I liken painting to gardening. In both you have colour, form, rhythm, energy, gesture and composition, and there is that same feeling of growing -- something developing before your eyes." That's about as far as Jane Evans is prepared to go in analysing her work. The end result is of far more value than the theory surrounding it. "There are a lot of people who see the concept as being all, and the result immaterial. I don't work on that premise. I have absolutely no pretensions in art; I paint because I love it and I enjoy the life it brings me, and that is that." Right:
'Papageno I', gouache and watercolour. |
Colour is a Jane Evans hallmark, in her work
and in her attitude. She says her art is primarily about colour,
and the way it creates mood and evokes a range of feelings. In a
thesis by Auckland University MA student Jocelyn Kemp, she is quoted
as saying: "It is ultimately the mood of a painting that speaks
a common language and stirs the imagination of the viewer. One colour
alone can be suggestive of a single emotion...but it is not until
you put that colour against another that the artist will express
her particular intention..." 