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Artist Kristy Jane

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Kristy Jane (b. 1977, Long Island, NY) creates unapologetically seductive oil paintings and real fake artifacts that ask: What does it mean to leave where we are and still be there? Jane holds a BFA from the University of South Alabama and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.


They have been exhibited at the Wiregrass Museum of Art, Huntsville Museum of Art, Maguire and Anne Bryan Galleries, Linus Galleries, Smith Theatre Gallery, Georgine Clark Alabama Artists Gallery, Ground Floor Contemporary, Rock Wall Gallery, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Lowe Mill Arts & Entertainment, among others.


Residencies include Original Mind, Mother’s Milk, and the Chautauqua Visual Arts Two-Week Residency. Jane currently lives and works in Huntsville, Alabama, where they are a Studio Art Instructor.



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"My hands can’t help it. They must put my mark on things to give me the drama and awe I have never gotten enough of or to dig the hole I sometimes need to put my head in. I follow what embarrasses me. I paint because I need somewhere to put the too-muchness. I make prints because I need somewhere to leave the evidence. I let objects hold ideas too heavy for me to carry alone and I make real fake documents with my camera. The work is more of a skin than a window. It’s the surface where we meet. It came from navigating the impossible chaos of my visual reference system over time with countless layers of nuanced color and shameless quotes from art history tangled up with my own to an indecipherable measure. My process is sticky and slippery (it's been feeling also hairy lately) because I am unable to leave my work until I recognize within it, a complete unknown. I make things for myself and to be with you. They are tangible howls and echoes of a feral domestic."



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Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.

I am originally from Long Island, NY. I moved around a lot growing up. I received a BFA in 1999 from the University of South Alabama in Mobile with a primary concentration in Printmaking and secondary in Photography. I immediately started a family, switched to painting and raised a whole person in the studio/art community in Huntsville, AL.


I received my MFA in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 2022, and currently teach studio art at a local university in North Alabama.


What kind of work are you currently making?

I'm making confessional paintings that feel like my avatars in the painting continuum. I'm exploring the ability to leave where I am at in a virtual sense through an ancient medium that has evolved and stayed the same as much as people. While painting and gathering subject matter I'm thinking about the blur between mental and physical travel. I'm gravitating towards windows, mirrors, recording and listening devices, taxidermy, body prints--things that hold a trace and something else.


What is a day like in the studio for you?

It starts with me rearranging my things from whatever chaos left behind from my last studio session. Once I have a spot to work, I will read and make notes while finishing my coffee. I have a variety of modes that I work in: The slow discovery of a painting evolving over time, the quick work on paper, the planned paintings, and sometimes object making out of clay or paper. If I am completely alone, I will work on the slow paintings and really get into the headspace--I'll do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. If there is the potential for disruption I will do the quick work of still life or studies or material research. I occasionally do plein air and life room studies which feel like my "sports", as well as, a specific kind of timed and in-public data collecting.


My sculptural object making is more mood based and for when I need to squeeze material or lower the stakes and take a mental break from painting even if I need to make the thing to be able to see it for a painting--it still feels like a play break. I'm not very ritualistic about my practice other than the arranging in the beginning--reading with coffee and my dog, Woofgang--then getting absorbed in art making for however long I have.


I'm not one to ever feel "finished" and occasionally have to hide work from myself or else I will rework things that are already fine the way they are. I have two studios which encourage me to have wandering studio days in one and intentional studio days in the other.


What are you looking at right now and/or reading?

Thank you for asking. Everything! This week, I'm looking at: The Chicago Imagists, Didier William, Remedios Varo, and Hélio Oiticicia.


I'm reading from Baudrillard's Ecstasy of Communication essay collection, The Cute edited by Sianne Ngai, Documents of Contemporary Art, Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin and whenever I'm needing the voice of Kevin Richards to remind me who I am--Derrida Reframed: A Guide for the Arts Student by K. Malcom Richards.


Where can we find more of your work? (ex. website/insta/gallery/upcoming shows)



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