AFTER NINE YEARS abroad, an artist is returning to Worcester to hold her first solo exhibition in the city.
Jayne Gaze, a graduate from the University of Worcester is one of the artists in residence at The Arches – a converted studio and exhibition spaces under the city’s railway arches.
A free exhibition ‘Innerscapes’ will have pieces relating to a traumatic flooding event Jayne went through and will be held at The Artery Studios from 10am to 5pm on September 7 to 16 .
Jayne moved to Spain in 2013, and in 2019 she was evacuated from her home and became a victim of the Vaga Baja flood which destroyed the region, her art studio and many sentimental pieces and items.
After the flood, Jayne was unable to paint for three years due to the disturbance the disaster had caused her – the exhibition of over 40 abstract and mixed media pieces are a product of the aftermath, made over the past two years.
She said: “I allowed myself to just work intuitively and explore these personal feelings and make visual representations of them so they’re very much a reflection of my interior world.
“They are memories, experiences, sounds and smells, feelings and emotions.
“I have always used a lot of bandage and gauze symbolically in my work to suggest emotional injury and healing so they’re quite tactile, some of them are almost sculptural.”
The other of two attended the University of Worcester at age 35 with only a portfolio.
She added: “Doing my degree was one of the best times in my professional life because it was something I’d wanted to do as a teenager coming out of school, to go to art school, but in those days it wasn’t recommended, they said you won’t have a career out of art.
“I was never happy, I’ve always had this creative calling, it felt like something was missing from my life.”
Jayne won an Arts Council Award to become the artist in residence at Worcester Cathedral in 2003/4, and has never looked back.
