» Jane Butler-Biggs’ exhibition
Get along to Scotches Farm to view Jane Butler-Biggs’ latest exhibition as part of Brighton Fringe, you might just find it ‘well hung’
Summer Pond
Jane Butler-Biggs is a fine artist of over 20 years standing with a background as a healer and Feng Shui master. She lives in the idyllic countryside surrounds of Hurstpierpoint with her family and will be opening the house for the May Open House festival and also exhibiting at the Brighton Media Centre in the first week of May as part of the Brighton Fringe.
How did you get started in painting?
I have always painted, there was never a beginning and there is never really an end only a point at which I stop.
I paint in the same way that I clean my teeth or walk across the gardens and down to the field near where I live. I paint as a matter of course and have been grateful for the lack of intrusion I have enjoyed in its progress through the years. For me painting is one of the easy parts of life.
Many people know you for your expertise in Feng Shui. How did you switch to becoming a full time painter?
I had been practicing and teaching Feng Shui for about ten or 15 years, and after my apprentices graduated, and I had put a huge mass of knowledge down in the three books, I felt I could justifiably take a break and catch my breath. The painting was on going anyway and just grew in to the available space that emerged as I let go of all the healing work.
Once my work was seen, I was soon asked to exhibit, and then everyone just wanted me to paint more and more. So I did and, in fact still do!!
Angels
Does a knowledge of Feng Shui help when painting? Do you visualise what a painting would look like in a certain room?
Studying and practising Feng Shui has helped me to develop an awareness of the energetics of a place, and also an attention to the movement of place around the seasons. Detailed observation and development of all the senses carries through from Feng Shui and healing work to painting and Fine Art as well, but I don’t paint for particular rooms or places. It is true however that the paintings create different energies from each other so benefit the places in which they are hung in different ways. They are perfect Feng Shui remedies and can be used in all sorts of ways to alter any place in which they are hung. Of course I always pay attention to this when placing the work, as you will see when you come to the shows in May.
I am also aware that I paint my energy into a canvas, in the same way that a chef cooks their energy in to a meal, and since I want my paintings to be uplifting and inspirational for the places in which they are hung I will only paint at times of intense positivity. I know what works to make places come alive and I paint paintings for that purpose.
What are your artistic influences?
I am influenced by my experience of the world and by the way I interact with the environment, which is very emotional and sensory driven. I suppose Taoism has a large part to play as well.
Casa at abadiania
Where have you exhibited?
I have mostly shown in London although I started out in Brighton and Sussex and still love showing my work here in the place where lots of it originated. I think Brighton people understand the paintings effortlessly, almost by a process of osmosis. Of course most people still see the work on the online gallery, which has been immensely successful.
What is your artistic ambition?
In the first instance for people to be able to see the newest work, which I can’t wait to share. This is the reason for offering both the central Brighton venue and then our out of town follow-up location during the festival. I want it to be possible for everyone to enjoy the work as soon as it’s available and in the best venues in the area.
My underlying artistic ambition is massive and strangely precise. It’s about communicating what can happen to our experience of just being alive day-to-day when we are prepared to actively seek out joy, I suppose.
That seems to involve risking confronting things like power and change and movement head on. Also being prepared to consciously navigate huge moral constructs moment to moment while being supremely tender and mindful of the finest of life’s tuning, oh, and keeping a lightness of heart.
A lot of my work with land and people and places, the teaching and the writing, has been around these ideals. The paintings are the most succinct form I’ve found of communicating this to date and they reveal the beauty of experiencing the world in this way as well, which is a massive bonus!
There is a lot of support for my work, and this means on the most basic level that I can go on painting and painting in the way that isn’t restricted or consumer led.
Jane’s work will be on show at the Brighton Media Centre, Middle Street, Brighton (map) from Friday 2 to Thursday 8 May, and at Scotches Farm, Malthouse Lane, Hurstpierpoint, (map) the weekends of the 10/11, 17/18 and 24/25 May, 11am to 5pm, as part of the Open Houses festival.
www.janebutlerbiggsfineart.com
