FIONA McINTYRE
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Fiona McIntyre ARE

“McIntyre’s industry as a painter is also one that seeks to discover further than an immediate site-line. This is very evident in her works, particularly in the essential balances and checks she makes throughout her creative process. She experiences first hand the actual nature of the outside; the cold, the heat, the growing, the sounds, and on the other hand, the more ‘hidden histories’ that shape this maelstrom or cacophony of immediate visual ‘stuff’ and thus exposes the very ‘atmosphere’ that allows a different assembly of all manner of disconnected elements. …"

DAVID FERRY RE, is Emeritus Professor of Printmaking and Books Arts at Cardiff Metropolitan University, and President of the Royal Society of Painter/Printmakers, London.

 
 
 

BIOGRAPHY

Fiona Mary Elspeth McIntyre

Born in Nairobi Kenya

Early childhood spent in Ireland and England


ABOUT THE ARTIST

FIONA McINTYRE was brought up in an artistic family spending her early childhood in Bohemian Dublin. Her late mother Dilys was a talented textile designer/dressmaker and her father wrote poetry and still plays the bagpipes. Fiona’s great-grandfather was the celebrated painter Malcolm Drummond (Wikipedia), a founding member of the Camden Town Group of 1912, and known for his vivid use of colour, strong composition and love of decorative pattern such as ‘Girl With Palmettes’ Tate: Camden Town Group In Context and his most famous painting ‘In The Park (St James’ Park)’ Southampton City Art Gallery. He was a personal friend of Robert Bevan, Spencer Gore and Charles Ginner. His wife Zina (Alexina Ogilvie) was a book illustrator and collaborated with Philip Gosse on ‘A General History Of The Pirates’ and several other publications. Zina was also a pianist and performed at the Wigmore Hall and Malcolm Drummond would often accompany her on the violin at soirées in their Chelsea home and share a studio.

As a child Fiona McIntyre would spend holidays visiting her grandparents on the West Coast of Scotland. Her grandmother Elspeth (the daughter of Malcolm and Zina Drummond), introduced Fiona to the art of the Camden Town Group.

Fiona’s grandfather John McIntyre worked for the Argyll and Bute Forestry Commission and planted the seed for her love of nature, and through his family she can trace her roots back four generations in India to her Punjabi/Scottish grandmother. The previous generation came to India during the East India Trading Company and Fiona’s Italian ancestor Giuseppe Goffredi da Finis (Finch) farmed Tirhoot Indigo in Bihar Wikipedia, her Indian grandmother married into this dynasty. In 2001 McIntyre visited India for the first time and felt an instant connection to the people, landscape and vibrant colours.

ART CAREER

As a student in Edinburgh Fiona concentrated on developing paintings inspired by the Colourists, Cubism, and African and Oceanic fetish figures. She moved to Sweden where she lived for seven years in Lund, and set up studio in an old Leather Factory with 33 artists. In 1989 she trained under Imaginist (Surrealist) printmaker Bertil Lundberg at Grafikskolan Forum (Wikipedia ). He had been mentored by the great Stanley William Hayter in Paris, and Grafikskolan Forum was his own version of Atelier 17. It was within this environment of exceptional artists that she found herself, and Lundberg hugely encouraged her artistic development. Three years later Fiona moved to Barcelona to do an MA in European Fine Art (Winchester), and ended up assisting the Master Printmaker Masafumi Yamamoto at his print workshop. This involved editioning for his clients in various techniques such as viscosity and stencilling. He had a formidable reputation for working closely with some of Catalonia’s greatest artists such as Miro, Tapies and Baruj Salinas.

RETURN TO THE UK

Eventually Fiona returned to England and spent several years in London painting from a studio at Delfina Studio Space, Bermondsey and the Block Printmakers, Elephant and Castle. After struggling to juggle art and survive, she moved out of London and set up a permanent studio in Gloucestershire where she currently lives. This has been a very rich period for her artistically where her focus shifted from the figure to ideas of landscape, trees and mythology. Fiona makes vibrant gestural colourist paintings described by others as a sort of Neo Romantic Colourist Expressionism that vibrate with colour applied generously in broad brush strokes. She is an elected member of The Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (ARE) and a founding member of (The Arborealists), a group of contemporary artists reinterpreting trees.

TURNING POINT

In 2001 she contributed by assisting in the resuscitation of copper and zinc etchings of Australian artist Sidney Nolan. A year later she was invited to conduct a residency at (The Sidney Nolan Trust) where she developed a body of work using mineral pigments mulled into oil paint, foraged materials transformed into inks and large drawings, etchings and photo assemblages. This was a turning point in the development of Fiona’s work combining landscape, anamorphic trees and invented flying creatures.

ACCLAIMED EXHIBITIONS

McIntyre has exhibited in galleries and museums in Sweden, Norway, France, Spain, Gibraltar and the UK. In 2013 she took part in a landmark exhibition called Under The Greenwood: Picturing The British Tree, featuring the work of 80 major artists of two centuries from the early 1800s. This exhibition at St Barbe Museum of Art led to a new art movement called The Arborealists of which McIntyre became one of the founding members. Also Capture the Castle: Turner to Le Brun and The Romantic Thread in British Art both at Southampton City Art Gallery and a Retrospective of Forum printmakers: Da och Nu at Lunds Konsthall, Sweden. In 2016 she had a major solo exhibition A Tree Within at Bishops Palace Wells, accompanied by a monograph of the same name written by Alan Wilkinson and published by Sansom & Co, and the solo exhibition Dreaming The Land, a culmination of a residency conducted at the Sidney Nolan Trust, 2021-22.

More recently Fiona was co-curator (Curator's Talk) and contributing artist at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery for the exhibition Paradise Found: New Visions Of The Blackdown Hills. 36 artist following in the footsteps of the Camden Town Group. Currently Fiona is exhibiting in Making Contact/Ta Kontakt at Grafiska Sällskapet, Stockholm in collaboration with Anne-Lie Larsson Ljung. In September Fiona will begin a residency at Hoskings Houses Trust to develop a new body of work.


ART EDUCATION

Winchester School of Art in Barcelona - MA European Fine Art

Grafikskolan Forum, Malmo, Sweden - Printmaking specialising in Copper Etching

Edinburgh College of Art - BA hons. Drawing & Painting

WSCAD - Art Foundation Diploma with Distinction

Farnborough College of Technology - HNC Graphic Design with Distinctions


MEMBERSHIPS

Elected ARE by Royal Society Painter Printmakers 2022

Founding member of The Arborealists 2014

Elected member of Bath Society of Artists 2021

Gloucestershire Print Cooperative 2021

The Block Printworkshop 1994

KKV, Malmo, Sweden 1987


CHARITY EVENTS

Head for Change - British Tennis Writers Annual Awards Lunch and auction, 2022

Trees For Cities, a contribution of sales made from the exhibition ‘Arboreal’, Hallidays Mill, 2021

Art For Life - Cancer Research, Christies St.James auction, 2004. Lot 177. Fiona McIntyre ‘Lakshmi’ acrylic on canvas, 120 x 80 cm

 
 
 

PRIZES AND SITE SPECIFIC ART


Prosigns and Graphics Prize 2002

Bath Printmakers Prize 2001

Surrey Heath Arts Council Grant 1996

In 1988 Fiona was commissioned by Malmo Allmanna Sjukhuset (General Hospital), for two site-specific artworks in the form of a fresco and a relief, installed in The Department for Information.

In 2019 Fiona was commissioned to make major works for Stancombe House, Dursley in the form of a drawing and oil painting ‘Nothing and Everything’ and ‘Buddha Gazing’ both of which were later exhibited in the art historical exhibition Romantics in 2020 at St Barbe Museum of Art - exploring what romantic art might look like at the beginning of the 21st century.

 

RESIDENCY AND CURRENT PROJECTS


SIDNEY NOLAN TRUST RESIDENCY AND SOLO EXHIBITION 2021-22

McIntyre conducted a residency at the former home and studio of Australian Surrealist painter/printmaker Sidney Nolan at Rodd Court, Herefordshire. McIntyre responded to the unique and ancient landscape surrounding Rodd Court with drawings from Sidney Nolan’s personal collection of objects and she also developed paintings and prints for the solo exhibition ‘Dreaming The Land’ held at the Sidney Nolan Trust, May - October 2022.

SACRED EARTH:SPIRITS IN THE LAND 2024/25 (IN PROGRESS)

Currently McIntyre is developing SACRED EARTH:SPIRITS IN THE LAND, a personal artistic exploration of unspoilt and revered places in Iceland, Scotland, Spain - connected by geology, pigments, poetry. The artist’s pilgrimage of living, working and travelling in these places took her on a journey back in time exploring water, forests, rocks and our ancient ancestor’s symbols painted and enscribed onto caves and stone. She is expressing this with natural pigments on linen canvas, drawings on paper and etchings. These exquisite mineral pigments resonate with their own life force and through a process of alchemy are mulled with oil into paint.

 
 
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Tim Craven

Artist, founder of The Arborealists, former curator at Southampton City Art Gallery

“Every artist wants to have an original voice and so must deal in some way with the baggage of art history. Most are hybrids of different ideas and styles. Fiona McIntyre’s superlative paintings have evolved from many and diverse influences…. Above all Fiona is a consummate colourist in sympathy with Turner, the Scottish Colourists and Hitchens unlike British artists who must contend with a gloomy, monochrome climate. The artist’s gene is strong; most know from whom they have inherited their talents. Fiona was lucky enough to inherit multiple doses that include the visual arts as well as music and a love of poetry.

Fiona is a Romantic artist. Although deemed outmoded and unfashionable with the onset of Impressionism and the subsequent Modern Movement at the end of the nineteenth century, embodied in the work of Turner and Constable, Blake and Palmer, Romanticism remains deeply rooted in the British psyche and keeps rising to the surface after repeated duckings… More recently, in championing our fragile, natural ecology, a political, cultural and social agenda especially popular with the young generation, a Romantic sensibility is ascendant again on a broad front, relevant and vital for the present day. Fiona’s art builds on the long tradition of British Romantic artists that continues to connect with and inspire many who, although now largely urbanised, remain endlessly fascinated by emotive and powerful representations of landscape.”

 

Dr. Alan Wilkinson

Art Historian, former curator at The Art Gallery of Ontario, expert on Henry Moore 

Wilkinson: As an art historian I have long been fascinated by the sources and influences of works of art on artists. One of the pleasures of our friendship has been lending each other books from our libraries. I was delighted that my copy of Geoffrey Grigson’s Samuel Palmer: The Visionary Years (1947) made such an immediate impact. For me, the works from his Shoreham period (1826-35) are so rich and dense, like the intensity of language from great passages of Shakespeare. What was it that resonated with you about Palmer?

McIntyre: There were several things really. He reminded me of particular artists I had been looking at over the years, such as the Group of Seven, Turner and Constable. Palmer was harking back to an idyllic world, living in harmony with nature, which is what I am all about, as are my fellow Arborealists. Today there is such a disconnect with the natural world and with this goes a loss of so many things: colour, language, awareness of seasons and an empathy with plants and animals… I feel increasingly that my work is a reaction to our desensitised world. Palmer was acutely aware of how his own world was changing for similar reasons due to industrialisation, and so he is to some extent a kindred spirit.”

 Extract from Fiona McIntyre: A Tree Within

(Published by Sansom & Company, 2016)