Hello!
My name is Eleanor Jane and I’m a photographic artist. I’m 24 years old and I live in an attic densely populated by mutant spiders in the city of Newport, South Wales. My flat is on top of a two hundred year old stone house which visitors always remark looks like a gothic mansion; with it’s huge black door, servant’s entrance (now obsolete!) and roof top spire. I have high ceilings & white walls & sash windows. On clear days, if you stand on the arm of the sofa and balance against the ceiling beam, you can see the Severn Bridge from my living room window.
When I was little my Dad was in the RAF so we moved around A LOT! We lived in Northumberland (near the Harry Potter castle!), Germany, Swindon (oh the glamour), St Athens, the Shetland Isles and Oxford before eventually returning to the lovely Welsh valleys. I guess that’s why I am so reluctant to move away now I’m settled where I am. People like to tell me that to be a photographer I must be in London and for a while I thought I should be too, but really I am perfectly happy where I am and as Miss Tukru so wisely said, “It’s a cliché & I don’t like it!” I recently started renting a studio; a fairly large room on the first floor of a converted stable, right in the city centre and no further than ten minutes walk from my flat. It's lovely, all white washed brick walls and wooden floors permeated with the smell of drying acrylic paints and ground up coffee beans. I spent a few tiresome days there, alone, in scuffed up old jeans, singing along to the radio, running out of paint, removing doors & dismantling unwanted furniture and now it’s finished and awesome. When I need to be elsewhere for work I catch a train or fill my horrible little car up with petrol and I go do the job. And at the end of the work I get to come home to my pretty little flat & my friends & the fresh air & the short walking distance to the shops & check on all the stray cats I have stolen recently.
I’ve been taking photographs since I was small & stumpy and my Nan sent me a mini plastic 110 camera that came free with her gas bill. I took twenty-four shots of my back garden and my Barbie dolls in a fashion show. Only one came out and I cried. When I was 16 I went to college to study Photography & Digital Imaging where I ate a lot of toast and was at least two hours late every single day. In 2006 I graduated from the University of Wales, Newport with a first class BA (hons) in Photographic Art. I finished on a high, being the first Photographic Art student to ever win the Welsh Livery Guild Award. After university ended I threw myself head first into setting up as a freelancer; getting up each day to sit at my desk overlooking the city, sending endless emails, entering competitions, applying for grants and generally being poor. I joined an artist’s networking & support collective where I met some wonderful people and together we poured over shared copies of the A-N searching for opportunities until we got bored and pissed around making things in the market gallery! Thank goodness it all paid off!
Last year I obtained international gallery representation and have had work exhibited in Cardiff, Bristol, Edinburgh, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I won a few competitions with Lomography/Urban Outfitters, The Guardian and came runner up in the Shell Wildlife Photography Award. I’ve been featured in national magazines and worked with some awesome high profile companies, as well as expanding local businesses and craftspeople. At the moment I am freelancing for a magazine, working on a top secret project (slowly but surely!) and after a gruelling application process am now having my creative practise funded by the Welsh Assembly… diolch yn fawr! I’m always looking for an exciting opportunity though and would welcome any photographic or art commissions, just get in touch!
Besides the photography I also make a regular limited edition per-zine called Girl Photographer, collect stacks of magazines, walk up mountains, lie to strangers about what car I drive, leave half built Ikea furniture around the flat, jump around to dirty electro beats, visit galleries and make notes on the information pamphlets of things that amuse me, send surprise mail to my friends, sing loudly in the car, spend frivolously, wish I had a Dyson, watch Marlon Brando films, eat Jelly Tots, sit on the roof, scribble stick men diagrams in my notebooks, make delicious vegetarian dinners & awful vegan puddings, drink ‘Whingers’ on Flick’s sofa and scream every time I see a spider.
Eleanor Jane
xxx
My name is Eleanor Jane and I’m a photographic artist. I’m 24 years old and I live in an attic densely populated by mutant spiders in the city of Newport, South Wales. My flat is on top of a two hundred year old stone house which visitors always remark looks like a gothic mansion; with it’s huge black door, servant’s entrance (now obsolete!) and roof top spire. I have high ceilings & white walls & sash windows. On clear days, if you stand on the arm of the sofa and balance against the ceiling beam, you can see the Severn Bridge from my living room window.
When I was little my Dad was in the RAF so we moved around A LOT! We lived in Northumberland (near the Harry Potter castle!), Germany, Swindon (oh the glamour), St Athens, the Shetland Isles and Oxford before eventually returning to the lovely Welsh valleys. I guess that’s why I am so reluctant to move away now I’m settled where I am. People like to tell me that to be a photographer I must be in London and for a while I thought I should be too, but really I am perfectly happy where I am and as Miss Tukru so wisely said, “It’s a cliché & I don’t like it!” I recently started renting a studio; a fairly large room on the first floor of a converted stable, right in the city centre and no further than ten minutes walk from my flat. It's lovely, all white washed brick walls and wooden floors permeated with the smell of drying acrylic paints and ground up coffee beans. I spent a few tiresome days there, alone, in scuffed up old jeans, singing along to the radio, running out of paint, removing doors & dismantling unwanted furniture and now it’s finished and awesome. When I need to be elsewhere for work I catch a train or fill my horrible little car up with petrol and I go do the job. And at the end of the work I get to come home to my pretty little flat & my friends & the fresh air & the short walking distance to the shops & check on all the stray cats I have stolen recently.
I’ve been taking photographs since I was small & stumpy and my Nan sent me a mini plastic 110 camera that came free with her gas bill. I took twenty-four shots of my back garden and my Barbie dolls in a fashion show. Only one came out and I cried. When I was 16 I went to college to study Photography & Digital Imaging where I ate a lot of toast and was at least two hours late every single day. In 2006 I graduated from the University of Wales, Newport with a first class BA (hons) in Photographic Art. I finished on a high, being the first Photographic Art student to ever win the Welsh Livery Guild Award. After university ended I threw myself head first into setting up as a freelancer; getting up each day to sit at my desk overlooking the city, sending endless emails, entering competitions, applying for grants and generally being poor. I joined an artist’s networking & support collective where I met some wonderful people and together we poured over shared copies of the A-N searching for opportunities until we got bored and pissed around making things in the market gallery! Thank goodness it all paid off!
Last year I obtained international gallery representation and have had work exhibited in Cardiff, Bristol, Edinburgh, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I won a few competitions with Lomography/Urban Outfitters, The Guardian and came runner up in the Shell Wildlife Photography Award. I’ve been featured in national magazines and worked with some awesome high profile companies, as well as expanding local businesses and craftspeople. At the moment I am freelancing for a magazine, working on a top secret project (slowly but surely!) and after a gruelling application process am now having my creative practise funded by the Welsh Assembly… diolch yn fawr! I’m always looking for an exciting opportunity though and would welcome any photographic or art commissions, just get in touch!
Besides the photography I also make a regular limited edition per-zine called Girl Photographer, collect stacks of magazines, walk up mountains, lie to strangers about what car I drive, leave half built Ikea furniture around the flat, jump around to dirty electro beats, visit galleries and make notes on the information pamphlets of things that amuse me, send surprise mail to my friends, sing loudly in the car, spend frivolously, wish I had a Dyson, watch Marlon Brando films, eat Jelly Tots, sit on the roof, scribble stick men diagrams in my notebooks, make delicious vegetarian dinners & awful vegan puddings, drink ‘Whingers’ on Flick’s sofa and scream every time I see a spider.
Eleanor Jane
xxx
