Art Within Reach

Artist / Jane Edden

Born in 1966, Jane Edden grew up in Sussex and received her BA in Industrial Design from Manchester Polytechnic in 1988. Although each project is seen as a separate body of work, they all adopt a similar theme of light, sound, movement and flight. Jane now lives and works in Devon, UK.

The subject of Edden's work is at the intersection of science and aesthetics, working across materials, seeking access to irregular interchanges between nature and culture.

Reversing the narrative of an entomologists practice, learning by dissecting and studying aspects of insects and their environment, Edden finds small parts and then constructs and metamorphoses delicate mechanical constructions to form mythical beasts.

Using real insect wings, damaged old toys and texts to form these chimeras, she creates hybrids of machines and nature, part animal, part machine with delicate wings that will never fly.

Flying Jackets investigates our attitudes to nature and the intention behind our consumption of natural materials. Each jacket, the size of a humming bird, is assembled from hundreds of minute feathers to createa collection that inhabits a hybrid space between avian and human. Feathers, aside from their functionaluse, have been used as human adornment in tribal, sacred, ritual, military and fashion settings, souniversally that it seems to be almost innate. A fundamental form of visual expression that has caused humans to decimate bird populations and place high value on some feathers while willingly letting others go to waste.

Informed by her fascination with the way animals are collected, classified and catalogued; Edden has adopted a scientific system of labelling and nomenclature. This references man's relationship with flight and the habit of romanticizing airplanes by naming them after birds, animals, insects and natural events. All the feathers used are by products of food processing and would normally be thrown away. Using these previously dissected parts, she creates meticulous constructions, inserting feathers into tiny drilled holes and overlaying so they lie in a truly bird-like way.

Solo Exhibitions

2016, Avian Forms, Horniman Museum & Gardens, London
2012, Ornithomorph, Flowers Cork Street, London
2009, Hunter Gatherer, Flowers Cork Street, London
2009, Pigeonhole, BCA Gallery, Bedford, Bedfordshire
2008, Woodland Trace, Flowers gallery, New York
2007, Avionics, Flowers East, London
2006, Migration, England & Co., London
2004, If I'm Breathing, I'm Singing, Patrick Allan-Fraser Memorial Chapel, Arbroath, Scotland
2000, Solar Labels, Blumenthal & Lynne, New York
1999, Fly on the Wall, Idee Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1998, Encasing a Cose, Idee Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1996, Recent Creations, Cassian de Vere Cole Fine Art, London

Commissions/Residencies/Awards

2009, Post secret, Public Sculptures, St David'S2 partnership, Cardiff
2008, BCA Residency, Bedford
2007, Sonic Arts Network, Plymouth
2006, Project Funding Award, Juliet Gomperts Trust, London
2004, Robert Flemming Residency, Hospitalfield, Arbroath, Scotland
2004, Sculpture Space Residency, New York
2002, Wysing Arts Residency, Cambridgeshire
2000, Solar Insects, Installation for Richard Blumenthal, New York
1999, Aviary-Interactive kinetic public sculpture, Bluewater, Kent

This article is sourced from Flowers Gallery.