Jayne Bennett trained formally as a Photographer and Textile Designer at RMIT, so is interested in fabric design and construction, but the imagery she creates captures these influences as they appear in the textures and surface patterns of objects and landscapes in nature & everyday life.

She has worked for the last 15 years in the Fashion and Homewares industry as a Designer and Product Developer, but this is her first foray into the world of fine art.

In her canvases, she strives to capture elements of the patterns and surfaces in nature that surround us every day, but if not sought-out we may pass by unnoticed. Her work conveys a sensitivity and sympathy with delicate structures, colours and natural elements often in macro view and taken out of context.

Her influences also come from a childhood spent in the Victorian Bushland and Goldfields of Ballarat & Bendigo, where old mullock heaps were littered with the rubble of long-crushed quartz and the ground was littered with bark, sticks and gum leaves. The beauty of these textures and patterns have stayed with her and mark all aspects of her design work in some way.

Her work for the Canterbury Art Show 2009 "The Soul Of the Tree" is a series of close-up photographic studies of the beauty of different kinds of tree bark patterns. When viewed up close, and then blown up in large format - these images appear as an Australian landscape, a Turner painting or an abstract pattern....none of these photos are re-colored or manipulated in any way, the colours are as they would appear in nature - the Beauty of the world around us when viewed in a certain light.

For more on Jayne Bennett see www.jaynebennett.com