Details

First Name	Fiona
Last Name	Wilson
Username	fionawilsonart
Website	http://www.fionawilson.net
Region	Greater Glasgow
Disciplines	Drawing, Painting, Printmaking
Themes	Abstract, Figurative, Landscape, Portraits, Narratives

Statement

All my work centres around telling stories, whether it be fairytales and myths or collected stories and ideas from my travels. I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to have seen and learned about ways of life in other far off places. To have had the time to examine their cultures and learn what lives in people’s hearts and all the other wonderful, and not-so wonderful, things in the world is a privilege and I want to share these experiences through my books, prints and paintings.

Building on a history of classical training in figurative oil painting, and my work is in a constant state of flux as I reach out to find new materials and methods in print, drawing and painting. I am learning to embrace risk and chance in my mark making and find I am drawn to creating highly textured, distressed surfaces from which my images emerge.

This more intuitive approach, particularly through monotype printing and cyanotype photography, are helping me to less obviously descriptive way to portray my dreams, emotions and stories that need to communicate to the viewer. The art making is far more about process and the pursuit of being in the moment, which I find makes for more interesting outcomes than following a set plan.

My recent series of ‘winter’ works explores my grief and acceptance of living with a spinal injury and the change of identity, self awareness and loss of my femininity, that this causes me. My summer work will be exploring the wild lands of scotland, and I plan that the two seasons of work will begin to intertwine and become one.

Biography

Fiona is an artist of two seasons. In summer she embraces the bold colours experienced from trips to exotic places like India, Mexico and Spain, as a counterbalance to the often grey West of Scotland, where she has lived most of her life. In winter, when the light fades, her palette tends towards blacks and blues and her preferred medium is that of print, during these months.

The themes of her work are deeply rooted in storytelling, drawing from her personal experiences and emotions, as well as from the collected tales and visual information she records with photographs, ketches and travel journals, made on her adventures. With this collected information, she seeks to capture the essence of different cultures and perspectives, translating them into vibrant, expressive imagery.

Fiona works with a variety of materials and print techniques to produce richly textured, multi-layered monotype works alongside etchings and woodcuts, often combined with monotype and hand-colouring. Her latest series of ‘dress’ themed prints, are almost self portraits and explore motifs of femininity, identity and the grief that comes with the disability of having a crumbling spinal column.

After graduating from Glasgow School of Art in 1991, Fiona Wilson taught Art & Design in UK universities before pursuing her passion as a full-time painter and printmaker in 2005. She has been a member of The Glasgow Print Studio, where she creates her prints, for over 20 years and was the monotype tutor there for over 6 years.

In 2024, Fiona was accepted as an artist member of the Glasgow Society of Women Artists. She has exhibited across the UK, including a sell out show in Brighton, and has been selected for the SSA, RGI, RSA, PAI open exhibitions. She was pre-selected for the prestigious BP Portrait award in 2016. Fiona’s work is held in private collections across the UK, USA, Australia, Switzerland and Europe, plus multiple paintings held in the Public Art collection/ Art UK.