Something more familiar and something more experimental 2 pieces from my second crit at Slade at the beginning of march.
The man behind the curtain, pencil on paper, 140 x 100 cm
Can we start again? , assemblage on wood, letters, tracing paper, red cotton, brown envelope, beeswax amulet carving, madder dyed cotton, maps, tape, cart wheel 1:1 diagram
The man behind the curtain, coloured pencil on paper, 100 x 140 cm
Thinking about power, the devastation those who have it cause and it makes me so sick to my stomach. Thinking about the wizard of oz, the man behind the curtain, the emerald city. The carnival. The rights of ordinary people, having to take their lives into their own hands. Thinking about the illusion of it all but the reality of its consequences.
Introducing first year MFA painter @_fionaberry
Fionaberry.format.com
Fiona Berry is a multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture and drawing, currently expanding her practice into a multitude of mediums. Her drawings and sculptures act as props, toys, costumes or shrines with the symbolic purpose to overcome life’s challenges and probe its mysteries. They are assembled and hybridised, disrupting traditional hierarchies of material and skill to express her own value system and life philosophy. She thinks about impermanence, potential, movement, resourcefulness and self-sufficiency. Her research focuses on what makes us human beyond the contingent norms of society, in an effort to imagine anew the socio-economic conditions shaping our relationship to place, identity, gender and ownership.
She graduated in Intermedia Art from the University of Edinburgh (2018) and completed the Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School (2019). She has collaborated with archaeologist Dr Frederika Tevebring on her display at King’s College London’s Curiosity Cabinet (2023) and showed work with Alice Black Gallery, London (2023). Recent residencies include Borgo Pignano (2024, 2025) and Dumfries House (2022).
Work 1: The Tree of Life, coloured pencil on paper, 100 x 70 cm
Work 2: Dear Alma, letter series, biro and watercolour on paper, 30 x 20 cm
Work 3: Prayer Beads, coloured pencil on paper, 70 x 100 cm
Sharing again a drawing i started in the summer and finished in the winter. Always thinking about spiritual journeys, pilgrimages, the state of becoming, of transcending, of movement and ritual and being. Came across the philosopher Deleuze today who just perfectly puts into words this philosophy, of limitless transformation, of potential, of time and being as continuous change. The hopefulness that gives me.
Tree of Life/ encountering monument, coloured pencil on paper, 2025, 100 x 70 cm
Yesterday i documented my works on paper at Slade so i can finally start to share some of the work i’ve been sitting with in the studio.
The Eternal Optimist, coloured pencil on paper, 70 x 100cm, 2025-6
I’m continuing with my coloured pencil drawings whilst exploring some new processes of making. Drawing for me is time to think, to get lost, to dream. A space where what i think cognitively and consciously does not take precedent. A space where the forms and colours engage me in a purely sensory realm where a slight of touch can reveal something completely unexpected. A space where i want to recognise and reveal things, to be patient, to be calm. To let go and see what comes up. To find an oasis in the desert. To be a pilgrim where time and duration and physical expense makes the arrival feel transcendent and sublime. To see something that feels both familiar and mysterious at once. To witness before you what you feel in your body, in your psyche, in the recesses of your mind is a relief and a joy. Holding the tension so you can let it go.
Prayer Beads, 70 x 100 cm, Coloured pencil on paper. I Haven't posted much since starting at Slade in September. It's been nice people seeing things in real life as I make them in the studio. I am at the point of wanting things to transform, and unravel, unpicking and reframing the perspective I have towards my work. Working towards a greater openness, mixing and contaminating of things. For now I will begin with a drawing I started on my residency in Tuscany in August and the first thing I finished in the Slade studios. Finding the essential nature in things so I can spring off from that. We'll see where things go.
Reflecting on my time in india this time last year!
Sooooo much inspiration i can feel how much my work is being influenced by it already. Grateful to have the time to think and work and release the thoughts and feelings that accumulated in my heart and mind that i wasn’t sure how to express, it’s getting there…
The world begets itself, mono-print on paper on naturally dyed cotton with paperclips
A piece as part of my first crit at @sladegradpainting in conversation with a multitude of other things. Things are germinating and unravelling and opening up and i’m excited about where they might lead…
Lighter than a cork, Oil bar and pencil mounted on scrap wood frame. With the title taken from an Arthur Rimbaud poem I feel like this fluidity and sense of lightness is something I continue to strive for in my work today, as well as my sense of being in general - hard as it feels sometimes. Nice to have it photographed well in the frame made for the Exhibition with @artground_gallery in December last year. It helps me to imagine it bobbing along the sea more.
