Fiona Stevenson, whose paintings have been exhibited in London, New York and Manchester, has featured in the largest-selling women’s weekly magazine in the whole of UK.
Fiona, who has been described by a fellow artist as ‘a maker of beautiful marks’, shared her abstract paintings and her story with the 416,000 readers of Take a Break, which hit the shelves of newsagents up and down the country a few days ago.
The magazine was fascinated by Fiona’s artistic journey from needlework and jewellery to her discovery that using oil and acrylic on canvas was the perfect way to communicate her emotional responses to the world around her.
“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.”
The magazine was fascinated by Fiona’s artistic journey from needlework and jewellery to her discovery that using oil and acrylic on canvas was the perfect way to communicate her emotional responses to the world around her.
The magazine chats to Fiona and her mother Mari about her national and international success, how her work was selected ‘blind,’ with no knowledge of her Down’s syndrome, for a local exhibition and how she was selected to present a solo show in Cambridge.
Fiona said: “I am an artist. It makes me feel happy when painting. I work hard when I get ideas of what I want to paint. I like being the boss and I am when I paint.”
Mari describes how Fiona sold one of her paintings at an art fair to a man who was juggling whether to spend his hard-earned cash on a new sofa for his flat or one of Fiona’s energetic colourful pieces – Birthday.
She was delighted when he opted for the latter after consulting with his girlfriend!
“I am so proud and in awe of her painting ability,” said Mari. “Fiona studies the canvas, applies paint with the first brush stroke, then a connection is made and Fiona and paint and brush swoop over the canvas and a story is told! It’s amazing, magic!”
Fiona has spent the past 12 years working with artist mentor Julia Skrebels, who sees similarities between Fiona’s work and that of St Ives Group mark maker Sir Howard Hodgkin.
Fiona is prolific, painting every day, sometimes working for several weeks on one canvas and on others reproducing five works in a single day, either in her kitchen or at Julia’s Hertfordshire studio.
Art collector Clare McCann says: “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.”
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 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.”
For more information and photography please contact Fiona Stevenson’s press officer, Helen Lambell, at Splash PR on 07969 253147.