Fife Contemporary

Jane Francis explores painting as a balance between looseness, of letting go and of bringing it back again, of precision and play, over and over again. When working with ink and watercolour, Francis often employs drip-painting, and other techniques that move paint around the surface of the work – an inherent energy within the medium, saturated with water, then swept up and controlled by a brush or other hand-controlled object – which mirrors physical, mental and spiritual energy.

More recently, Francis has been experimenting with the natural properties of water and pigment for the Pond series. The Ponds are a kind of figurative work, representing diversity in neurology and interconnectedness with the world and each other.

Vessels Pink and Green, 2023
Watercolour and pen on handmade cotton paper

This work explores opposite experiences, a ‘flipping’ of how one views and processes the world.

The series uses pooling, charging, drips and bloom to represent the conscious and unconscious forces of being. Francis uses botanical inks, and enjoys the idea of using ‘literal plant juice’ to create representations of human interiority and interaction.

Three Vessels, 2023
Botanic and India ink and graphite on paper – Vessels are a recurring theme in Francis’s work.

Four Neuroponds, 2023
Botanic and India ink, watercolour, graphite on paper

Click to zoom

These four paintings represent the culmination of a body of work exhibited as ‘Across Their Many Islands’ in 2023. The works are figurative and express complex inner experiences rather than outward appearances.

These works have an iridescent quality, which shimmer in the light. Click to zoom

About Jane Francis

Jane Francis is an abstract and conceptual artist working across painting, drawing, ink, photography, assemblage and artist’s books. As well as developing a studio practice Francis has worked as lead artist on several participatory art projects with adults and children.

Francis explores the processes and potentialities of somatic and sensorial encounters – between each other and the more-than-human-world – in particular the possibilities of the uncanny, sensitive, gentle, marginal or fragile. She works in ways which skirt the boundaries between freedom and control of materials, and recent works explore the monster and the ancestor. She had two solo exhibitions in Fife in 2019 and 2023, and took part in two group exhibitions in 2024, Neuk Perspectives at Patriothall Gallery and Out of Sight Out of Mind at Summerhall in Edinburgh. She has previously received support from the Creative Scotland Create: Inclusion Award and Visual Artist and Craft Maker Awards for developing her practice.

Jane Francis is visually impaired, with Purtscher’s Retinopathy, which presents many challenges, but which she says also informs her unique perspective.

Above: The Ancestor, 2024
Gouache and pastel on paper

Find out more about In Tension and see exhibiting pages from other artists