Jane Askey was born in North Staffordshire. She studied Printed Textile Design at Manchester Polytechnic in 1980s, subsequently working as a freelance textile designer and lecturer before becoming a full-time painter.

Travelling and exploring are central to her practice: she frequently visits the places she finds interesting, sketching on location to deepen her visual enquiry and understanding of place.

Back in the studio, she references sketchbooks and photographs using a wide range of media on canvas, paper, and gesso wooden panels to interpret a variety of subjects with a particular focus on landscape. Her paintings are held in private collections throughout the world.

“My paintings explore contrasts: the broad painterly sweep of the sky and the sea against the specific drawn details of human habitation. I often search for an elevated viewpoint to observe the order and structure of the man-made within the landscape, combining contrasting approaches of fluid gestural mark making and specific linear details. Certain landscapes I return to again and again, finding new ways to interpret and reinterpret the key elements that make that place special.”