Fiona Curran

Fiona Curran (b.1971 Manchester) read Philosophy at the University of Manchester before studying at Manchester School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, she teaches at the Royal College of Art in London and works from her studio at Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridge.

An interest in the poetics and the politics of landscape space is central to Curran’s practice. Her works explore notions of landscape space and landscape time, once measured through the impact of natural cycles and planetary shifts, now equally measured through digital time and the patterns of invisible algorithms. Images are collaged and fragmented, materials are layered. There is a strong tactile element at play that both mimics and counters the saturated spaces of screen technologies with their heightened colour and sleek, luminous surfaces. Curran’s practice reveals a recurring utopian impulse, formal idealism and sense of escapism, frequently referencing ‘natural’ forms, patterns and materials from the applied and decorative arts alongside historical botanical specimens. There is however, no easy flight to the pastoral as landscape fragments are reproduced as facsimiles and natural motifs are obscured or become ghost-like presences against heightened coloured grounds. Curran works with a range of media across painting, textiles and installation, often deploying slow and laborious handmade processes that mark longer durations of time and loss in the midst of an accelerated present.

Curran has also produced a number of temporary public art commissions in the UK. These works extend the artist’s practice into the physical landscape and reflect on notions of heritage as an ongoing and contested project of inheritance where the past might be reclaimed and reimagined.