Jane Eyre Jodans

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 Jane Eyre Jordans is a multidisciplinary artist who explores the intersections of identity, memory, and personal experiences mainly through video, performance, and installation art. Born to a Canadian Italian-Jamaican family, her work reflects her unique background and perspective as a queer mixed-race black woman.  

With a commitment to experimentation and risk-taking, she pushes the boundaries of traditional artistic forms, creating works that are as thought-provoking as they are visually striking. Through her art, she invites the viewer to engage in a dialogue about the complex realities of our world and to consider new possibilities for the future. 

Jane Eyre Jordans received her undergraduate degree in integrated media from OCAD University in Toronto, and she is currently pursuing an MFA in intermedia at Concordia University in Montreal. Her work has been featured in several exhibitions, including Temporary Collection at ED Video in Guelph, Dyscorpia in Edmonton, and Representations of Pain in Montreal. 

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 As an artist, I am inspired by the power of personal experiences to challenge and disrupt societal norms and expectations. My work blends vibrant colours, upbeat music, and popular culture to create a joyful, celebratory atmosphere.

 Central to my practice is the concept of glitches, influenced by Glitch Feminism as developed by Legacy Russel. I explore how digital tools can deconstruct the white heteronormative gender binary, extending this conversation to include disabled and mentally ill bodies. 

 Through my art, I express my experiences as someone with intersecting identities, using my work as a journal to capture the complexities of my life. I seek to create a space for connection, empathy, and self-reflection. 

 My drawings explore the tension between organic and artificial forms, using linework to sculpt ambiguous, three-dimensional shapes that evoke biomorphic structures. As someone whose work navigates the complexities of identity and personal experience, I’m drawn to these tensions as a way of exploring the boundaries between what is natural and what is constructed. Just as identity can be fluid and multifaceted, these forms resist easy categorization, existing in a state of flux that speaks to the layered nature of selfhood and perception. By employing intricate cross-hatching and layering techniques, I investigate how texture and shading can create a sense of mass, weight, and surface quality, despite the simplicity of the materials—pen and paper. 

 These forms exist in a liminal space between the familiar and the unknown, reflecting my fascination with in-betweenness — whether it be cultural or personal. Some resemble eroded landscapes or anatomical structures, while others suggest futuristic artifacts or remnants of something both handmade and natural. This duality mirrors the way I navigate the intersections of my identity, where past and future, organic and synthetic all converge. The deliberate use of ballpoint and ink allows for a meditative process, with the repeated motion of mark-making mirroring natural processes of accumulation and erosion.

 Thematically, this body of work reflects on transformation—both physical and psychological. It considers how forms shift and evolve over time, whether through external forces or internal change. As an artist, I’m drawn to transformation as a reflection of personal growth and self-discovery, echoing my broader practice of exploring identity and the complexities of being. The interplay between negative space and density in each drawing underscores a dialogue between absence and presence, questioning how we perceive and define boundaries in both material and conceptual ways.
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