Jane Mckeating Greater Manchester, United Kingdom
Janes practice combines drawing, printmaking and embroidery. She works from her studio in Stockport, and exhibits regularly both nationally and internationally. Jane studied embroidered textiles at Goldsmiths college followed by postgraduate study at Manchester Polytechnic. Having lectured for 30 years at Manchester School of Art , Jane changed career in 2020 to become a full time artist.
Jane McKeating’s images are playful narratives. The tactile surfaces depict universal themes in everyday life telling visual stories of inconsequential events, often presented through characters who appear within sequences of images. Drawing is central to Jane’s creative practice and she moves between drawing, print and stitch to make work in different media at a variety of scales. Sketchbooks are in important part of her creative thinking process and the visual stories always start between the pages of her books, which she uses daily. Utilising print processes to translate drawn images onto a variety of cloths and papers, she works with them using a series of processes of addition and subtraction. This might include adding marks through stitch, or by erasing and distorting marks through removing warp or weft. The use of print enables images to be endlessly repeated, so frequently drawn characters and objects appear over time in many different guises and scales. Jane is interested in the haptic qualities of stitch and cloth and her textiles emerge from an exploration of the relationship between touch and vision. Her synaesthesia impacts upon the use of colour and this is explored through the intensity of handstitched patternmaking, resulting in richly coloured and highly tactile surfaces.
Artwork
Nine days a week, Textile, 2018, £1500
One Monday morning she found 25 counties in her wardrobe, Printed and embroidered Textiles, 2021, £2000
While they were talking and I was drawing, Textile, 2021, £1500