Jane MacNeill’s paintings possess a quiet dream-like intensity, expressing the sense of calm and connectivity we feel in the presence of nature. The zen-like simplicity of her compositions, subtle use of colour, close tonality, and richly layered paint handling create spaces where we can breathe and reflect.
Whether she is painting the landscape, a tree, a bird or a portrait, Jane is getting to the essence of things. Her vision is fed by direct contact with nature, memories, folklore, and myth. Painting is a process of distillation, striving to reduce noise, relax the mind and enter a different state of awareness in communion with nature.
‘These are the mountains of my childhood, the hills of home. They are ancient, weathered, and rounded by retreating ice; the colours they reflect are dictated by their geology, by the plants that manage to grow on them, by the quality of snow and ice, and by water. Although I have walked countless times amongst them, it is their distance that moves me. When they are half hidden by forests, or by the vast thickness of air between my eyes and their surfaces, I am filled with a swelling sense of calm which sweeps away busy thoughts, a kind of fast track to the meditating mind’s goal of marvellous emptiness. For me, the process of painting is an attempt to recapture this effect; a clearing away of clutter, a distillation of what is seen through half closed eyes, to elements of water and stone, and air.’
Jane MacNeill
Jane MacNeill was born in Aberdeen in 1971 and brought up in Aviemore in the Highlands of Scotland. She studied drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art, graduating with First Class Honours in 1996, and a post-graduate Master of Fine Art in 1998. During her time at Edinburgh College of Art she won several awards including the prestigious Richard Ford Scholarship which enabled her to study in Madrid. She was invited to take up a position at ECA as a tutor of drawing and painting, which she held until 2000 when she left to pursue her career as a painter. She now lives near Inverness.
Jane MacNeill’s work can be found in public collections such as the Royal Scottish Academy, the Wakefield Art Gallery, Edinburgh College of Art and private collections worldwide. Her paintings were featured on Yorkshire Television’s documentary programme “The Day I met an Angel” in 1999.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2020 The Silence of Mountains, Kilmorack Gallery
2019 The Room, An Talla Solais, Ullapool.
2018 Late Winter Exhibition, Kilmorack Gallery.
Nairn Book and Arts Festival CD Exhibition.
Granite and Cloud, New Work by Jane MacNeill, Kilmorack Gallery.
2016 Scottish Contemporary Art, Kilmorack Gallery.
2015 Eye Contact, Jane MacNeill, Kilmorack Gallery.
ArTay with Frames Gallery, Perth.
The Viaduct Exhibition, Culloden Battlefield Centre .
The Winter Show, Kilmorack Gallery.
2014 Summer Show Kilmorack Gallery.
ArTay with Frames Gallery, Perth.
The Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition.
2013 The Winter Show, Kilmorack Gallery.
2012 The Christmas Show, Kilmorack Gallery.
2011 Spring Show, Kilmorack Gallery.
2010 The Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition.
Jane MacNeill at the Greig Street Studio, Inverness.
2009 Summer Exhibition, Kilmorack Gallery.
2008 Jane MacNeill, Allan MacDonald and Alan McGowan, Kilmorack Gallery.
Art and the Word, Kilmorack Gallery.
The Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition.
2005 Works on Paper, Kilmorack Gallery.
Face Value, Chelsea Art Gallery, Palo Alto, California.
2004 The Battersea Affordable Art fair with 8b Gallery.
“Faith” Nottingham Castle Museum.
2003 The BP Portrait Award.
“Past and Present,” The Strathearn Gallery, Crieff.
“Headstrong” 8b Gallery at 7 Bedford Row, London.
2002 Jane MacNeill in the Friends Room, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
New work by Kirstie Cohen, Jane MacNeill and Allan MacDonald, Kilmorack
Gallery.
2001 Bruton Gallery at Gallery 27, Cork Street, London.
New work by Michael Forbes, Suzanne Gyseman, Jane MacNeill and Alastair
Fiddes Watt, Kilmorack Gallery.
2000 20th Century Religious Art, Wakefield Museum and Art Gallery.
New Highland Artists, Kilmorack Gallery.
Northern Highlights, Bruton Gallery at Gallery 27, Cork Street, London.
The Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, selected by Michael Parkinson.
1999 Angels and Icons, Bruton Gallery, Leeds.
1998 Edinburgh College of Art Post Graduate Exhibition, “Assembly Point”.
New Generation, Compass Gallery, Glasgow.
Jane MacNeill at John Street Students’ Association, Strathclyde University.
1997 Edinburgh College of Art Post Graduate Exhibition, “Sited.”
1996 1997,1998, Royal Scottish Academy Student Exhibitions.
AWARDS
The Richard Ford Scholarship for travel to Madrid, awarded by the Royal Academy, London, 1996.
The James Cumming Award for Draughtsmanship, awarded by the Royal Scottish Academy, 1996
Daler-Rowney Awards for Painting, awarded by Edinburgh College of Art, 1996 and 1997