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ARTIST STATEMENT

My work explores the structural and sensual elements of fabric through drawing, moving image and most recently painting, viewing the historical abstraction of drapery through a contemporary lens.

Fabric is the focus, I manipulate it into dramatic sculptural forms, working with the push and pull of the body.

I am motivated by the way drapery has historically allowed figurative painters to let rip into exaggeration and elaboration, not bound by reality.

I take photos to use as reference for my work, working collaboratively with models who I know well. I arrange strong compositional shapes finding powerful and playful postures, such as a cross-current of movement or the tipping point before a change, to bring exuberance and energy to the intimate compositions of my paintings.

The more I look and paint the more I am struck by the expressive and imaginative possibilities of drapery. Just as the weather can supply the atmosphere of a landscape, drapery can meet any expressive need in figurative work, by virtue of its connection to art history. My work reimagines and renews this lineage, bringing drapery back to the forefront of my contemporary compositions.

BIOGRAPHY

Fiona divides her time between studios in Brighton, UK and Emilia Romagna, Italy.

After a BA in Contemporary Dance and Choreography she worked for ten years in broadcast television, initially as a Picture Editor before transferring to programme promotion as a Presentation Director.

Moving to Brighton she set up a successful Garden Design practice whilst gaining qualifications in Garden Design and History.

A passion for the drawing element in this work led her to an impactful period of study with artist Nick Bodimeade. Her worked progressed from drawing into fine art animation and short films. Fiona’s lifelong love of dance inspired a fascination with the interaction of the body and fabric in motion and this now became the subject of her work.

An MA in Art and Design, at Brighton University allowed her to explore her diverse skills and experience. She produced a series of figure and fabric-based short-films, for which she achieved a distinction, and spent twelve years making fine art and commercial short films. Her film ‘Wallpaper’ featured in the 2011 BFI film festival and also the British Animation Awards. Fiona’s painting career developed alongside this, working in acrylics, the clothed figure as her focal subject.

In 2023 she had a painting selected for the Royal Academy Summer Show.
In 2024 she completed a course with New Masters Academy, studying the drawing of drapery, including the eight different types of folds.

Since sept 24 she has been refining her skills in dialogue with a community of successful and knowledgeable painters at the Essential School of Painting in London. Now working with oil paint, she is deepening her investigations into figure and fabric by the close examination of historical masterworks, as well as contemporary paintings that she admires, expanding the ambition of her work and appreciation of it’s context in the art world.

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