Fionn Wilson

Artist statement

My practice is focused primarily on transforming paint into something that can carry an emotional resonance. I like to feel my way to a subject. Sensuality and the physical joy of painting is also very important to me. I love the way paint moves, its texture, the feel of the brush on the canvas.

I work very quickly, sometimes using photographs as reference material (ideally photos I’ve taken myself) whilst never attempting to simply recreate the image.

Most of my work is portraiture, but I also paint landscapes and still life. I particularly like to paint urban landscapes and I’m fascinated by astronomy and the night sky and the relationship between Venus and the moon.

Transcendence is important to my practice. I like to explore beauty (which I see as a kind of truth) along with sexuality and glamour. I especially like to paint women and I view the female body as somehow supernatural. The women I paint often seem sphinx-like or masked — their beauty a riddle.

I’m also interested in how people organise different frameworks of belief, be this political, spiritual, or philosophical. I find people of conviction compelling to paint (whilst not necessarily being in agreement with their ideas). I’m interested in the idea of a pure motive.

Self portraiture is an important element of my work and I constantly reevaluate where I am with my creative process through painting myself.

I started painting in 2010. Before then, I’d never even considered painting. When a close friend of mine suggested I started painting I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. Now, painting has become almost everything. If I’m not painting, I’m thinking about painting.

I’m never happy with what I paint, but I think this is a good thing, it’s part of the whole process of painting, moving forward in a never-ending argument with yourself. I like this from Agnes Martin: An artist is a person who can recognise failure.

Images below, from left to right: Portrait of Albina (2015), Portrait of Bianca (2019) and Portrait of Lucy (2018)

Biography

Fionn Wilson (b. South Shields, 1972) is a London-based figurative painter, originally from the north east.

In 2022, she was commissioned by Wetherspoon to paint three portraits of poet Stevie Smith for ‘The Alfred Herring’ in Palmers Green and curated and painted for an exhibition celebrating the life of actress Fenella Fielding, working with Simon McKay of The Fenella Fielding Foundation. She has recently co-curated an exhibition looking at the 1963 scandal the Profumo Affair, with Professor of British Cinema Steve Chibnall, at The Gallery at De Montfort University, Leicester. The exhibition was named ‘Exhibition of the Week’ by art critic Jonathan Jones in The Guardian (March 3, 2023).

She is currently working on a series of paintings of Charles Holden tube stations in the Enfield area, which will become part of the public collection of the Museum of Enfield. She has also recently secured a grant from The Responsa Foundation, (which supports art with strong social impact) to commission ten paintings from ten artists (including herself) for Lucas House, a community mental health centre in Edmonton, Enfield (North London).

Recent exhibitions include Picture Palace (2020) at Transition Gallery, BEEP Painting Biennale (2020) at elysium gallery and Without Borders (2021–22) a touring exhibition travelling to Japan, Norway, USA, Venice, Canada and Wales.

From 2016–2020, she organised, painted for and curated Dear Christine, an ACE-supported touring group exhibition paying tribute to sixties icon Christine Keeler (Vane, elysium gallery and Arthouse1 from 2019–20) (for which she was named ‘Woman of the Year’ by British Women Artists) and completed a series of portraits of political activist, historian and writer Tariq Ali (2018–2019).

Other curatorial projects have included My sex, my self (2016) at Hornsey Town Hall Arts Centre — a group exhibition of female artists examining sexuality and sensuality through self portraiture. She was a judge’s favourite (writer Jan Woolf) in the International Women’s Erotic Art competition, 2013.

She has exhibited at the annual open exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists (2016), the Royal Scottish Academy open exhibition (2016) and the Enniskillen Visual Arts Open (2016). Three of her paintings were selected for the National Open Art finalists’ exhibition (2016). Her work was recently included in a four-museum tour of China as part of the exhibition Contemporary Masters from Britain (80 works from the Priseman Seabrook collection) (2017–18) and Made in Britain: 82 painters of the 21st century at the National Museum, Gdansk (2019). Her paintings were selected for the ING Discerning Eye (2017) and Contemporary British Painting’s winter group show (2017).

From 2012–2013 she set up and ran the not-for-profit SPACE art gallery in Southgate, London, in a disused bank where she curated and hung seven exhibitions of work from local and international artists. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2016.

Awards

Arts Council England

The Responsa Foundation

Public collections

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (three paintings)
Bethlem Museum of the Mind (self portrait on loan for two years)
De Montfort University Leicester (two paintings)
Hillingdon Museum and Archive
Marx Memorial Library (two paintings)
Museum of Enfield
Museum of London
Museum of National History of Denmark (two paintings)
National Coal Mining Museum, England
The Oscar Wilde House, Dublin
Priseman Seabrook collection of 21st Century British Painting (six paintings)
UCLH art collection (two paintings)
J D Wetherspoon collection (three paintings)
Yantai Art Museum, China

Contact

To enquire about purchases, limited edition prints (available for all paintings), exhibitions or commissions, please contact me by email at fionnw@hotmail.com.