Jae Maries

Jae Maries

Profile

In her work, Jae explores her personal environment through a Visual Diary. She combines several techniques including oil painting, printing and hand and machine stitching. She has work in several public collections and it can be seen in various publications including her book ‘Contrasting Elements’.

For many years, Jae’s work explored the relationships between people and their environment. Her inspiration was drawn from her thumbnail sketches in which she captured the individual characteristics of people as they went about their daily lives. Recently however, Jae’s work has taken a much more personal slant. She is now interpreting, through stitch and paint, her immediate environment.

She notates her daily life in sketchbooks through symbolic and abstracted marks and forms. These are then translated into larger artworks and the ongoing series Timelines is an example of this new direction. Her work is unplanned and evolves through a series of processes. Each process, hand stitching for example, explores certain events, actions, feelings or memories on a daily basis. The subsequent layers, maybe in paint, overlay the previous marks suggesting the fading of memories as time passes. Jae uses mixed media and several techniques in her work. She enjoys the challenge of combining oil paint with stitched textiles and relishes the contrast between the hands-on sensual quality of working with fabrics and threads and the thrill and spontaneity of brush marks.

Jae works full-time on artwork and in 2000 completed a large commission for Ashridge Management Development Centre, Hertfordshire. In 2007 she worked on an extensive art project with Red Oaks Primary School, Swindon resulting in a commission for a wall-hung textile for the schools Main Hall. She has work in several public collections including Braintree Museum and Art Gallery, Essex, the BBC South East Region Offices, Tunbridge Wells, Kent and Oathall Community Centre, Haywards Heath, West Sussex. She is a freelance lecturer and tutor and has just published her first book Contrasting Elements. Jae has BA Hons. Fine Art and a Diploma in Creative Embroidery from Brighton University. She exhibits internationally and has now returned to being an ordinary member of the 62 Group having been Chairperson from 2009 – 2013.

DEEP FREEZE | H 110 x W 100 x D 2cm Photo : Michael Wicks
DEEP FREEZE (detail) | H 110 x W 100 x D 2cm Photo : Michael Wicks
WATER, WATER | Painted, printed, stitched panels. Dimensions : H140 x W109 x D2cms. Photo : Michael Wicks
WATER, WATER (detail)| Painted, printed, stitched panels. Dimensions : H140 x W109 x D2cms. Photo : Michael Wicks
Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England
Southern
1990

Workshops: Yes
Talks: Yes
Commissions: Yes