26 July - 27 September, 2019
GiG
Baumstr. 11
80469, Munich
Germany
GiG Munich is excited to present The Witch’s Garden, the first international solo exhibition by
London-based, British artist Jane Hayes Greenwood. The show focuses on the
artist’s latest series of work, newly made paintings of dreamlike
plants and the mythical gardens where they might grow. Exploring desire,
control and magical thinking, the work
makes use of an idiosyncratic symbolism, referencing
varied sources such as illuminated manuscripts, botanical illustration,
anatomical diagrams and herbal fertility guides.
In The Witch’s Garden the painted plants act as potential ingredients for love potions or spells, their depicted herbs and flowers thought to
have special power and potency. Drawing on apocryphal histories, the painting Apollo’s Gift I is
based on an extinct plant known as Silphium, reportedly used as a contraceptive and aphrodisiac
in the 700 BC. Described as having a heart-shaped seed, one theory suggests this might be where the heart
shape symbol originated from ❤. The Witch’s Garden explores our relationship to the natural world,
our bodies and their life cycles,
and considers fear, power and ritual behaviour.
Jane Hayes Greenwood completed an MA in Fine
Art at the City & Guilds of London Art School with distinction in 2015. Soon afterwards she was shortlisted for the Catlin Art Prize,
2016 (London)
and presented a
large-scale solo exhibition, Lead Me Not Into Temptation, 2017 at Block
336 (London). She was recently selected for the Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting,
2018, as one of the 40 artists whose practices have been shaping and
defining Britain’s contribution to current painting on the national and
international stage. She is also the
co-founder and Director of Block 336; an artist-run project space, studio
provider and UK registered charity located in Brixton, London that has hosted
over 30 exhibitions. She
teaches within the BA Fine Art department at City & Guilds of London
Art School.