Just as jazz is unfettered by traditional musical rules, so are the large-scale artistic works created by abstract artist Fiona Stevenson, a painter with Down’s Syndrome, whose mentor says she is free from all the ‘nonsense’ of how she ‘should’ work.
Fiona, whose work has been exhibited in New York, London and Manchester, creates bold energetic acrylic on canvas pieces which reflect her personal view of the world and her emotional reaction to events, places or elements of popular culture.
Her artist mentor Julia Skrebels adores Fiona’s refreshing approach.
“One of the most exciting things about working with Fiona is that she doesn’t have any preconceptions of all that art history that bogs me down or any of those ‘I’m supposed to do it like this’ concerns. She’s free of all that nonsense.”
Some years ago one of her pieces, which had been selected for display at Hertford’s Courtyard Arts purely on merit, with no knowledge of her Down’s Syndrome, prompted the organisers to offer her a one-woman show.
She was then offered another exhibition at the Hertford Arts Hub alongside the work of the late, internationally renowned Scottish artist and former jazz musician Alan Davie, who blended the freeform style of his musical passion with the ethos of zen Buddhism and ancient cultures to create his innovative drawings and paintings.
Much of his improvised oeuvre, spawned using free association and artistic intuition techniques, has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.
While Alan’s work inspired David Hockney, Fiona’s has inspired visual artist and associate lecturer at Central St Martins, Susan Aldworth who describes Fiona as ‘a maker of beautiful marks.’
“I often think of her drawings, which inspired a suite of my lithographs,” she says.
Master printer Kip Gresham, who has collaborated with heavyweights such as Terry Frost and Elizabeth Frink, curated an exhibition which included Fiona’s work at the Cambridge Arts Festival after the pair of them worked together on a series of prints.
Kip explains the thinking behind the title of that exhibition “Passer Being.’
“The idea behind the phrase is that of one who inhabits their own world and this, at certain times overlaps the worlds that others experience. The ‘inclusion’ is more like a Venn diagram than a complete incorporation. Fiona’s mark-making suggests rather than defines her points of connection.
“The paintings are expressions of experience rather than a recording of appearance, a suggestion of how things feel rather than simply how they look. She paints and draws every day and has developed a remarkable vocabulary that is hers alone.”
Fiona’s mentor Julia adds: “I’ll suggest something and she’ll do the opposite and it’ll look great. She surprises me. I think she’s going to ruin it, but it’s right. I can’t imitate it. If I tried to paint like Fiona I never could.”
Art collector and Fiona Stevenson enthusiast Clare McCann adds: “I was so impressed when I first saw Fiona’s work – her spontaneity, sense of colour, form and space and an innate and extraordinary understanding of how to use these gifts to create paintings of such joy.
“She has an emotional sensibility which appeals to her many admirers. She achieves what other artists without Down’s Syndrome can only admire. They know how hard it is to create such images.”
View Fiona Stevenson’s virtual galleries here: https://www.fionastevenson.co.uk
For more information and photography please contact Fiona Stevenson’s press officer, Helen Lambell, at Splash PR on 07969 253147.