Rhythm of Line
Shelly Bancroft • Jane Lacy Hodge
3rd - 9th February 2014 • 11am - 9.30pm
54 The Gallery, Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London, W1J 7QX
www.shellybancroft.com
www.janelacyhodge.com
info@rhythmofline.co.uk (contact for details of private views)
‘Rhythm of Line’ shows work by Shelly Bancroft and Jane Lacy Hodge. Whilst their subject matter is
ostensibly quite different, both artists’ practice is rooted in a passion for observational drawing and a
desire to find the ‘line’ to recreate the seen and felt experience.
The exhibition includes drawings, etchings and other print media and sculptures.
Shelly Bancroft’s focus is the expressive vitality of the figure. Through her portraits (both faces
and nudes), she aims to capture not only a likeness, but also a sense of character and mood, with
lyricism and sensitivity. Also, to produce a beautiful and enduring object in the work. Inspired by imagery
that combines the spiritual, sacred and sensual, she is particularly drawn to the great draftsmen and
Middle Eastern/Asian sculpture. She is now working toward a more defined vision which could become
more narrative and iconic.
She has a BA in Fine Art from Leeds University and an MA from the Royal College of Art, School of
Film and Television. She turned to film making, believing this to be a natural progression of her
representational art work, and has worked in the film industry for a number of years - as a film studio
executive and in feature film acquisition, development, project assessment and as a creative producer.
She recently returned to drawing and sculpture, realising that she missed the tactile, felt process of
making an image. She is now drawing, painting, etching and sculpting, in parallel with her work in film.
Recent portraits include Victoria Bateman, Professor Christopher Cordess and Derek Wyatt MP.
Exhibitions include selection for ‘The Discerning Eye’ in 2008 and 2009. She is represented by Ramsay
Prints and online at Commission A Portrait Ltd and Go-Figurative.
Jane Lacy Hodge’s work is about looking at and responding to landscapes with which she has a
particular connection, such as the steep South Downs ‘Hangers’ around her home and studio. All her
work is the product of observational drawing and an accumulation of looking at and being within an
environment. Her stimulus is that direct emotional engagement, the longing and the exhilaration.
Although trained as a painter, for some time she has worked mainly in printmaking, which she loves for
its potential for mysterious and vibrant markmaking and for the physicality of the ‘hands-on’ processes.
And also for the works’ capacity to become itself, to take on its own life – to surprise her. For many
years she has found the combined rhythms of walking, looking and drawing an essential; three years ago
she spent two months walking the pilgrim route, the Camino de Santiago, 500 miles from the French
Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in NW Spain, making drawings every day. A current project
involves experimenting with a form of ‘intaglio’ from plaster blocks based on imagery of the field, trees
and hill across from the studio, using clay dug up from that field and hill.
Jane studied at The Slade School for her DFA, followed by an MA in painting at The Royal College of
Art and an MA in Printmaking at Camberwell College, University of the Arts London. She recently
completed the Postgraduate Diploma, The Drawing Year at The Prince’s Drawing School.
She has taught life drawing at St Martins School of Art, Morley College of Art and Heatherley School of
Art. For a number of years she combined her own practice with her position of Director at Hodge &
Partners Limited, an international award winning corporate design consultancy.
Jane exhibits regularly with East London Printmakers and Loop, and shows at Bankside, The Printroom
and the RA Summer Exhibition. Her large composite piece ‘Fish Island’, a ‘riveted’ collage of etchings
celebrating the network of industrial buildings and streets in the area ‘fish island’ opposite the new
Olympic Stadium and relief prints from found metal, was selected for the ‘Artist’s Eye’ at the Hackney
Museum, an exhibition combining film, 2D and 3D works responding to the dynamic of the area and the
changes occasioned by the 2012 Olympics.
jane@weed5.f9.co.uk
For more information, please contact info@rhythmofline.co.uk
54 The Gallery, Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London, W1J 7QX
3rd - 9th February 2014 • 11am - 9.30pm