Jayne Dent

Newcastle-based artist Jayne Dent who takes influence from folk, art pop, noise, ambient and improvised music, her work has been described in The Guardian as "stripping folk back to its bones while letting its future echoes bleed out".

With her prolific writing and extensive touring schedule, her unique sound has won much support across the musical spectrum. Dent has notably performed live for BBC Radio 3's After Dark Festival and as part of the 2022 BBC Proms alongside Spell Songs, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Voices of the Rivers Edge Choir. She received the prestigious Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers and was 2020-2021 Artist in Residence at Sage Gateshead.

She is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, composer, and producer based in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK), working on commissioned and self-directed creative projects and serving as a community arts leader and workshop facilitator. Sound often forms the basis of her creative practice; she records, improvises, and performs with electronics and voice, while frequently incorporating elements of textiles, writing, digital art, interactive installation, moving image, and print.

Her work often explores themes of history, mythology, and landscape, with a particular focus on the intersection between folk art and developing technology. She is interested in questions such as what stories will be told in the future and how they will be conveyed. Her creative process highlights connections between ancient cultures and the present day, using this continuum as a basis for dreaming and speculating about the future. She enjoys experimenting with various modes of storytelling, from the literal to the surreal and abstract.

Her approach to creating is decidedly ad-hoc, open, and playful, which she also aims to transfer into her teaching and community arts work. Her goal is to present creative practice as something meaningful, achievable, and accessible to all.

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