Jane Dodd came to jewellery when already in her 30s, studying with Pauline Bern at Unitec in Auckland, New Zealand and then joining Workshop 6, a renowned shared jewellery studio.  There she developed her individual practice, taught public jewellery classes and collaborated in many group projects.  In 2009 she returned to her hometown of Dunedin where she works from her home studio.  Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in many private and public collections. 

Jane’s early work was fabricated in metal and almost always narrative in nature. Themes of landscape and place, natural history, human history, and storytelling dominated.  Recently, a broadened material palette incorporating bone, shell, stones, pearls and, especially, recycled wood has allowed her a change of scale and colour.  The softer materials have provided a challenge of carving and construction that has become crucial to her craft.  The virtuosity of historical jewellers and sculptors are a constant inspiration to Jane but their use, or misuse, of resources often provokes her narratives.  Concerns for the natural world, and the relationship of humans to it, remain paramount in the conceptual background to the work.