My ideas all stem from the same tree, in short, placing focal animals in unexpected settings. I’m always searching for ways to unify my subjects with their surroundings. I want to evoke a sense of nostalgia and comfort.
-- Georgia Fiennes, 2023
EASTWOOD FINE ART: Your work draws on the traditional genres of still life and depictions of the natural world to create vibrant and playful settings, could you tell us about your sources of inspiration?
GEORGIA FIENNES: I studied Fine Art in Boston. Art schools in America use fairly traditional teaching methods similar to the ones used in Florence with long days of drawing, painting, and sculpting from life; learning to really look and see. I then came back to finish my degree in the UK where much more conceptual teaching techniques were employed. It was then that I learned to apply and adapt. I wanted to create realistic paintings of visually legible scenes and images that equally allow the viewer room to question their pairings and settings.
Over the last 25 years, I have sought inspiration from so many different places – these have varied as my life has evolved but I have frequently returned to the same sources: animals, china, lighting, textiles, interiors, and nature. The first questions I am always asked are where do you find your inspiration and why the animals? I regularly use antique prints of flora and fauna as a jumping-off point, but I think we are so visually overstimulated these days that it’s not a case of where to find the inspiration (because it is everywhere) but more a case of how to condense it to create something meaningful and beautiful. As for the animals – they give my paintings soul, a way of conveying personality and feeling. I don’t like the emptiness without them.
EFA: In your most recent work, the animal subjects are rendered with an anthropomorphic character, whimsically inhabiting their surroundings in place of people. How do you approach your paintings, where do you begin?
GF: My ideas all stem from the same tree, in short, placing focal animals in unexpected settings. I’m always searching for ways to unify my subjects with their surroundings. I want to evoke a sense of nostalgia and comfort. I’m a list person. I keep long lists of ideas, which I tap into and refine regularly. When I am starting a new body of work I look through the lists and then make new lists specific to that body of work. My list of what I am currently working on looks something like this:
Tulips – Polar Bears (?), Yellow Painting, Bird stack, Venice – Otters, Venice – Hippos, Venice – Whales, Cow - Block print, Bison, Giant Cabbage – Cow (?), Rainbow Chard, Giant shells, Nuts, Minerals/Rocks, Egret, Crocodile, Zodiac, BOATS!
This list will then morph into many different things – some recognisable and others that are not. On Sunday evenings, after the craziness of the weekend, I head down to my studio for a few hours where I fine-tune my ideas for the week, so I can hit the ground running on Monday morning.
EFA: The paintings’ titles conjure an additional layer of narrative within each scene, for example, Poppy Seed Cake and Wedding Day, how do you arrive at these names?
GF: A bit like receiving a present, if it’s beautifully wrapped, it almost doesn’t matter what’s inside. A good painting name can go a long way! Sometimes I’ll have the idea for the painting and the name comes to mind alongside it. Other times, I’ll sit with a group of paintings for days trying to figure them out. Some of them are personal and symbolic, some emerge completely spontaneously or I change the language to evoke various cultural references.
EFA: For SPOTLIGHT, you are showing two new works in oil on canvas – Gouldian Glass and Wallflowers, both 2023 – could you tell us more about these paintings?
GF: Gouldian Glass is a painting of Gouldian Finches in a Murano Glass chandelier (another pretty obvious title!) I have always painted lights. The shapes and negative spaces can be really interesting. Dark, grey days often result in brighter paintings. My studio has a huge glass roof so I really absorb what’s going on outside – this day must have been a shocker!
Wallflowers was inspired by my – not so secret – obsession of hanging plates on the wall. I have plates on the walls of every room (and corridor) in my house. I think they add an alternative point of interest when mixed in with a group of paintings. I’ve been incorporating them into my work for many years but this is the first time I have painted more than one in a single painting. I think Hungarian plates are so beautiful with their bold red brush strokes. Here. the animals are all small mammals from North America; I wanted them to be slightly camouflaged so as to become one with the plates.