Jane, a Central West artist, has a boundless and passionate love of things. She is an artist whose whimsical works project a joyous demeanour, but beneath her jocular exterior resides the contemplative Jane.

The things of Jane’s childhood hold an enduring fascination for her and her artistic concerns reflect a return to those joy-filled memories of childhood but here represented with adult consideration.

One senses the love, passion and tactile energy she puts into her work, each of which is so very different from the next.

Jane’s work can be viewed and enjoyed on a superficial level but, if one delves deeper, there is a rich tapestry woven from her personal experiential narrative.

The origins of her determined recycling of objects, as with almost all of the content of her art work, relate to the profound experiences of her childhood.

Born the seventh of eight children, Jane accepted her four older brothers’ hand-me-downs as the norm. The boys-own activities of her brothers were Jane’s role models and the ultimate realisation that she was somehow different was difficult to accommodate.

She desperately wanted to just be part of the gang.

Within the inner-sanctum of Self Portrait we discover Jane herself as a doll, inserted into the top of a redback worker’s boot – the little girl, not unwillingly, forced into the shoe.

The oversized extra-heavy suitcase was used to pack the whole family’s holiday gear for their trips to Tully – it contained their entire world’s needs.

The attached umbrella is there to ward off the dampening spirit that always did and still does, attend rainy days - all very personal iconography.

Changing Gear is the transmogrified nursery rhyme There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. Jane’s mother’s determination to obtain a driving licence at age of 50 provided mobility and liberation from her earlier home-bound domestic struggles, which inspired everlasting admiration from Jane.

Jane’s influences range from Alex Calder’s easy-going early sculptural methodology to Paula Rego’s dark predilection with her childhood.

In Dog Years I’m Dead runs to August 20.