May Painting

I graduated in Fashion and Textiles at Winchester School of Art before moving to London. My involvement in the Fashion/Textile industry has been varied, ranging from running my own design company and a stall at Camden market, to designing collections for companies such as BOY, NO!YES? Clones and Artificial eye, in the 80s and early 90s.Since 1994 I have been Head of Fashion and Textiles on the Foundation Course at The University for the Creative Arts. (formerly Kent Institute of Art and Design)Taxidermy sits amongst specimens in formaldehyde, false wooden legs, edwardian dress mannequins and medical teaching torsos in her South London flat.Jane has always been an impulsive collector of taxidermy and the bizarre and curious. This started when visiting a house in her childhood, which was less a house and more a living museum. There were stuffed bears, cabinets of bizarre creatures and strange things in jars. After years of collecting oddities Janes house has become a version of the House museum that inspired her.I am particularly drawn to the reject animals (bloated frogs, scavenger birds, pigmy goats, pickled skinned white rabbits) that nobody buys in car boot sales, auctions or bids for on the Internet. My work is an attempt to transform the dirty creatures into strangely beautiful museum pieces. I have become a cosmetic taxidermist playing with both seduction and repulsion."I have developed a desire to create work that deals with the complex issues surrounding mans relationship with death and animals. I do not view a dead animal as disgusting or offensive even though perhaps the average thinker does. I appreciate the wonder and beauty of the natural world in both life and death."DEFRA REGULATIONS.I hold a current LICENCE TO SELL DEAD BIRDS under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Issued by NATURAL ENGLAND.None of the birds used in my work were taken from the wild illegally.