JAYNE ARMSTRONG

Jayne Armstrong is an artist and maker in wood. Jayne works primarily in fresh, green wood to explore the sculptural and aesthetic possibilities of a material that moves and changes shape as it dries. Her work is intended to play with the boundary between sculpture and function and to challenge expectations of the material itself. The resulting forms are fluid, undulating and frequently monochromatic in tone.

Jayne’s background as an academic within the field of cultural studies informs and underpins her approach to her work. Her work is experimental and exploratory, drawing from art history, design history and philosophy. She describes her work as a dialogue between material, concept, technology and technique.

Each individual piece begins life on a woodturning lathe where it is often turned to no more than 1 or 2 millimeters before being left to dry naturally. Once dry, Jayne carves, bleaches, stains, burns, embellishes, paints, oils and waxes. Each piece is unique and the outcome of multiple processes.

Importantly for Jayne, much of her wood is sourced locally. Some will come from her own garden in Brittany, France which she cuts and chainsaws herself. Other sources are friends, neighbours, the local arboriculteur and the communal forest. Worked in this way, each piece of wood has a story rooted in time and place, yet located within a broader cultural and historical context.