White Dress and Water

Jane Eccles, 2012, Acrylic on Canvas

Eccles received a B.A. in Fine Arts and English from the University of Guelph as well as a B.Ed from University of Toronto. She retired from a teaching career in 2003 to practise art full time. She was awarded the Marshall McLuhan Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1992. For twenty five years, Jane Eccles has built a career as a painter and performer and is recognized as a supporter of the arts. 

Since 2005, Jane Eccles has painted dresses lent to her by various women and their relatives because of their link to a significant event or memory. As part of her process, Eccles researches their stories, producing archival paintings inspired by the narratives of women from all walks of life. Separated from their real subjects, the very clear absence of the female body in Eccles paintings turns her work into a feminist critique. As explained by Eccles, “the dresses in some way contain the souls of these women”. The dresses are juxtaposed against Canadian landscapes and waterscapes often referencing various parts of southern Ontario where they were painted.

Born: Smiths Falls, Ontario, Canada, 1949

Boyd Garments

White Dress and Water is one of 18 works by Jane Eccles that was exhibited as part of the "Objects of Affection" in 2012. In 1983, Eccles attended the Boyd Auction in Lindsay. The auction told the story of the wealthy colonial Boyd family through the household objects offered up for sale. Among the objects were women’s garments that represented many generations and dated back to the 1900's to 1980s. To Eccles, these garments captured the evolution of women's rights and freedoms as the dresses moved from the confining tight-fitting dresses to the short freedom of the flapper dresses. She was captivated by these dresses and wondered about the Boyd women who once wore them. 

Eccles arranged to work from select Boyd garments from the Boyd Museum in Bobcaygeon as well as from the personal collection of a Peterborough woman. Beyond the garments themselves, the key to the creation of these dress paintings is the location of the Boyd house which is situated close to water (now torn down) and the use of water in their lumbering business. Eccles started to think of the garments in relation to water, flowers and of the struggle that the pioneers had in Canada.