Jane Terry is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976. From 1979 to 1987, the artist lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she studied photography at the San Francisco Art Institute and Lawson Galleries represented her work. In 1989, she worked as an assistant to internationally acclaimed photographer Denis Brihat and taught photography at Lacoste School of Art in Lacoste, France. After traveling through France and Italy, Terry returned to the United States and attended Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, where she was awarded a Graduate School Fellowship and a Teaching Assistantship, receiving her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1991. She was selected for an eight-month residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado from 1992 to 1993.

Currently, Jane Terry is Professor of Art at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she has taught since 1993. Her photographs have been exhibited at such places as the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, the San Francisco Art Institute, Wake Forest University Fine Arts Gallery in Winston-Salem,  Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York City, Temple Gallery in Philadelphia, the Weems Gallery at Meredith College, Artspace Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art in Jacksonville, Florida and the Gregg Museum of Art and Design at North Carolina State University. Juried competition awards in 2004 include First Place, Fine Art Photography in the Merry Moor Winnett Triennial at Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art in Greensboro (Juror: Elizabeth Matheson) and Second Place in State of the Art at Associated Artists Gallery in Winston-Salem (Juror: Lawrence Wheeler). Terry is represented in the collections of John Taft, Walker Art Center Board of Directors member in Minneapolis, the Peter and Madeleine Martin Foundation for the Creative Arts in San Francisco, and, most recently, in the collection of Sallie and Clyde Nolan, Jr. of Greensboro, North Carolina. She has received numerous grants and awards in recognition of her work including a grant from the Peter and Madeleine Martin Foundation for the Creative Arts, two United Arts Council of Raleigh Regional Artist Project Grants, and many grants from Meredith College in support of her teaching and professional development. 

Through photography, Terry seeks to connect the physical world with the timeless nature of the spirit. Personal myths and truths are often reflected in her work.Her images are a strange autobiographical journey into loss, ritual, dream and memory.