Internal Exile - New exhibition by Jayne Lenihan

To all intents and purposes Jayne Lenihan is a recluse... so invested in painting that she will seldom venture outside of her studio. It is only good fortune and luck that we are able to show the fruit of her seclusion in Words & Pictures Gallery.

Lenihan spent years before her self-imposed exile traveling and living on the European mainland where she absorbed a prolific body of visual language from European folk art. It would be very obvious to suggest these paintings owe a significant debt to Australian Aboriginal art... but that is quite a superficial connection and their origins are much more subtly driven by colour, composition and subject matter associated with decorative folk art. Think of barges and boats, painted furniture and ceramics and you will be closer to the mark.

I love these works.