Artists Working in Isolation: A Personal Experience

'Coastal Flooding,' oil on canvas, 30 x 23 cm

As lockdown eases a bit here in the UK, my anxiety has also eased a little though strangely my output of painting has not been affected. If anything, the 3 months of restrictions caused an even greater concentration on my painting and my 2020 album on my website is packed with new work made since March 23rd. The painting above was completed this week and reflects the gradually changing conditions in that I've picked up the threads on a past theme of climate change. Up till this moment I was focused on a series of collage and mixed media works which was largely directed by wanting to escape to new places or were reflections on the new territory we find ourselves in. Now these themes are alternating with painting on canvas again.

Most artists work in isolation much of the time but the main difference has been that we couldn't meet up or visit each other's studios and exhibitions. There have been many online events, discussions, and online exhibitions and we've had to find new ways to connect with our audience.

Materials take much longer to arrive at the moment so while making collage works on card I've been re-working unresolved paintings, some from a few years ago. For this post I'm showing a few of these plus a new painting made for a show in China later this year (which may end up being postponed).

'Garden of Light,' oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm

I've also gone back to working with oil paint again after having spent these 3 months working with ink, acrylic, papers and gesso on card. 

'Paintscape,' oil on board, 37 x 47 cm

Finally, this medium sized painting was painted entirely in acrylic. Last August as a particpant at the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale I was one of 30 artists selected to go out sketching in the landscape near the mountains. It was a 90 minute journey and I worked with ink on paper. This painting is a composite of memories of my month's painting Fellowship at the Great Wall in 2016, 4 trips to China, and reflections on my visits which evolved into waterfalls of colour. The painting was also influenced by the many mixed media works I was creating. I could have chosen any of the viewpoints I sketched though none were close up views of mountains, but as I love mountains, and they symbolise journeys and I remember the long journey to the mountains at the Great Wall, this image grew from those layers of thought.

'Waterfalls of Colour,' acrylic on canvas, 93 x 78 cm

Fiona Stanbury's Interview Featured in Art Habens Magazine, April 2020

'Night Gathering,' (3) acrylic on canvas, 20 x 25 cm

Recently I completed an interview for the international online art magazine, Art Habens. The questions they sent me were really insightful and interesting to answer and caused me much reflection. I ended up with 35 pages of text and images, one of the longest interviews published! I'm planning to print it up as a small catalogue.

This is the Link:

https://issuu.com/arthabens/docs/biennial.ed.xvii/190

And an image from the opening page of the magazine....

In the last few weeks I've been more busy than ever. Firstly, finishing 2 paintings for an exhibition in China later this year which I was invited to submit work to as a participant of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale in August 2019. At that time 30 artists were taken into the landscape around Beijing and we made sketches which have been the inspiration for the artwork.

This is one of the paintings I made.

'Waterfalls of Colour,' acrylic on canvas, 85 x 65 cm

Since I last wrote I've been continuing with my Lockdown series which began during the 30 Works 30 Days global art project in April, mentioned previously. This forced me to use new materials as due to the pandemic my delivery of materials was delayed and has generated an ongoing series of mixed media works along with works on canvas. One of the new themes is based on night gatherings or what I have viewed sadly as a lack of night gatherings. The only time I feel a sense of community on the street where I live is when we all go out at 8pm on a Thursday evening to clap the NHS and carers and keyworkers. So the painting I'm posting today is one of my series remembering the life I used to see on the streets at night and the buzz of social interactions. This is one of an ongoing series.

2nd Review of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale 2019

'A New Dawn,' Freddy Coello, oil on canvas, 120 x 170 cm

The 8th Beijing International Art Biennale opened at the National Art Museum of China on 26th August 2019 and continued until September 23rd. This is the second part of my review of the Biennale, (as a participating artist), my first review was written on October 8th - please scroll down the page for this.

The theme of the Biennale was 'A Colourful World and a Shared Future.'  Much of the artwork was very large due to the minimum size of submitted work being restricted to 100 cm by 100 cm. To make an impact on the huge walls of the Museum the canvases needed to be large to very large. However, with sculptures and ceramics there was much more variety in size, some being quite small. 

As I mentioned in my previous review, there was a huge range of artwork on display, from paintings to sculptures, ceramics, prints and installations. I deeply regretted not having enough time to see everything! For this second review I have chosen a few more artists as examples to give a broad idea of this rich and diverse Biennale.

The painting above 'A New Dawn,' by Freddy Coello, an artist from Ecuador, was painted using one model in different poses. Freddy showed me photos of the model during one of our artist group chats in the foyer of the hotel. It is a very impressive and detailed painting with much attention given to the expressive poses of the model.

Yannis Koutsouradis, an artist from Greece who lives in Holland, writes about his colourful sculpture below:


My memories from the Greek islands are possibly the basis for the inspiration of this work together with reflections, recollections or angels of the Aegean Sea. They found themselves at home in Holland due to the Dutch nature or the endless water parties.
After realising that the ancient Greek sculpture had lost its colouration, I decided to research and apply "colours forever".
I was able to do that during the second period of my studies at the United kingdom. my professor Alan Gouk at the art school which is now called University of the Arts London, as well as my instructor in technique Tony Driver at the Royal College of Art has revealed to me the secrets of paint and colour enamelling on steel. Thus the materials of my work are made of these.
The work is of course realised in the Netherlands - my chosen land, in which I have celebrated recently 30 years of sharing with my native Greece.

Yannis Koutsouradis with his sculpture

Yannis Koutsouradis' sculpture, Para Thin' Alos, glass enamel on metal

Figurative painting was side by side with abstract. This large colourful abstract canvas is by Alon Kedem, an artist from Israel. It impressed me with its colours, different kinds of mark making and shapes.

'Green Light,' Alon Kedem, oil on canvas, 200 x 235 cm

One of the most inspiring aspects of the Beijing Biennale was seeing the different visions of the artists and how there are infinite ways of seeing the world and translating it with all kinds of materials. The breadth of artistic imagination is breath taking at the Biennale every time. It is also interesting to see artwork from so many countries outside one's own.

Stella Mimikou with her artwork

'Colourful Hands; Chain For the Future,' Stella Mimikou, 120 x 120 cm, acrylic

Stella Mimikou, another artist from Greece, was inspired by the lyrics of the Greek poetess Zoi Karelli and her words, 'With hands in extend and balance, an ideal divine line.' 

During my 4 days invitation to Beijing, I tried to meet as many of the over 200 invited artists as possible but there was simply not enough time due to various obligations - attending the Opening ceremony, various trips to the countryside and to see Beijing, and preparing my speech for the international symposium - but mealtimes in the beautiful restaurant gave a wonderful chance to meet up with old friends from previous Biennales and to exchange artist cards with new friends. Thankfully, social media allows for connection once an event is over and we are all back home!

'The Kiss,' Irami Bulimaivale, oil and ink on canvas, 155 x 125 cm

View of the Biennale

I liked the way the sculptures and ceramics were displayed around the huge rooms because they shared equal attention with the work on the walls and there was enough space to be able to walk around each sculpture to see it from all angles. The sculptures ranged from totally abstract to highly detailed and figurative. Again, there was a wide range of materials used.

'Burst,' by Naima Karim, oil on canvas 150 x 120 cm

The 8th Beijing International Art Biennale exhibited 640 artworks from 113 countries with 446 of the artworks being from outside China.  I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to exhibit with such renowned and talented artists and to have had a glimpse in to their creative visions.

Inspired by my Flight to China for the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale 2019

'Flight to China,' acrylic and ink on canvas, 110 x 70 cm

While I collate the set of photos for the second review of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale, I'm posting a photo of a work in progress which was inspired by my recent long flight to Beijing.

I actually hate flying! But when I've had a few glasses of wine I'm able to marvel at the changing landscape below and often draw. This painting is a composite of my 4 flights to China since 2015 and it intertwines so many aspects of landscape and my love of landscape. Since I was a child I've felt the underlying energies of the land and this painting explores a sense of those energies, a feeling of movement, the movement from West to East, and approaches mark making and variations of colour in reference to my many ink paintings on rice paper,

The quality of mark making and the quick spread of ink, as you work on the highly absorbent rice paper, creates all kinds of unexpected effects and beautiful transitions. I wanted to see if I could take aspects of these qualities on to canvas using thin washes of colour. The photo does not really show the transitions of tonal values in the colours or the textures and thick versus thin paint. There are light veils of colour (coastal areas) and ink brush strokes made with a calligraphy brush. It is a painting which, as it is largish, needs to be seen in reality to experience all the detail and contrasts. I still see this as 'In Progress' because there are a few tiny areas I may still tweak, but I see it as a highly personal painting and the shapes and colours emerged from the painting as it developed; there was no planning or sketching in of areas.

I like my work to be a parallel for journeys and as I painted this I relived certain parts of that journey, remembering both the actual landscapes and also the intense feelings they created and my imaginings about what lay below. Most important for me is to be able to travel through my imagination as the paint sets cues on the canvas.

Stay tuned for the 2nd part of my reviews of the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale.

My Participation in the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale 2019 , Part Three: Landscape Painting

View of the distant lake, ink on paper

As part of my series of articles on the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale, I'm posting some ink paintings I made in the Chinese landscape on September 1st. 

To my delight I was invited to go on a painting trip to a village called Shuiyucun not far from the mountains with about 30 other artists, a mix of Chinese participants and others from around the world. As I'd found out about this trip before I went to China I packed my ink (bought in Beijing in 2017) and calligraphy brushes and bought paper while in Beijing.

Mountain View, ink on paper

Mountain View, ink on paper

View from the tower I painted from

The journey out of Beijing and into the verdant landscape took about an hour and then we were divided in to groups when we reached Shuiyucun. Some of us were taken down to a small river to paint but I think that possibly artists had specific ideas they wanted to work from because no one wanted to work from the river. (If I had had longer time I would have been happy to paint there as it was quite interesting.) Consequently we split up to seek out other places of inspiration.

Since my first glimpse of distant mountains I knew I wanted to paint them.  Two of the guides took me up a hill to a wooden tower where I was able to paint alone for about 90 minutes. The view was incredible; a panorama that stretched on two sides (north and west) to mountains, and then the land fell away in to undulating pastures and areas of trees to the east, and to the south I could see a lake and far beyond the hazy outline of Beijing. It was very hot and once my eyes acclimatised to the bright sunlight, an array of many greens spilled out from the land. 

I had deliberately taken only ink as my aim was to catch some shapes and lines I might extend back in the UK.

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I painted mostly North, West and South, and made 12 ink paintings. One of the guides had her small daughter with her and I was quite surprised when she looked at a small ink - quite abstract with few marks - and exclaimed 'It's a whole picture yet with so little brush work!'

View of the Lake,, ink on paper

View of the Lake, ink on paper

Though I initially concentrated on the mountains, I soon became quite intrigued by the distant lake because I knew we would be painting there in a few hours. The sun being in front of me cast deep shadows in some areas while other elements faded in to a shimmery haze.

The guides took me back to the village where I met up with the other artists and we had a huge lunch which consisted of many different dishes brought to us freshly cooked from the kitchen. 

Tables being set for us in the village

The table I shared with friends

The amazing dining area

Not long after our meal, we were taken to lake Quilong where everyone set up next to the rippling expanse of water dotted with islands of lotus leaves. There were floating water lilies with small yellow flowers and I became mesmerised by the swaying water as I sat on large rocks to paint.

Ripples on the lake, ink on paper

Artists painting by the lake, ink on paper

I was also intrigued by the distant mountains which seemed to echo the shapes of the tangled lotus leaves....

Lotus Leaves and Mountains

Lake Quilong

Artists at work

The lake and nearby houses

Some of the artists (I am the 3rd from the right)

Finally, we all went back to Shuiyucun to have a discussion with the leaders of the village and the Chinese artists. It was wonderful to have this exchange and to share our ideas. There were several photographers and we were filmed as well. I was invited to say something because they had seen my speech the previous day and I mentioned how much I had loved the experience of being able to paint in the landscape and that I would love to stay for several weeks! I felt really lucky to have been offered this chance and to have had a glimpse in to aspects of village life. 

Everyone was so friendly and wanted to know how we felt about the trip and what ideas we had to extend or improve it for the future.

The leaders of Shuiyucun starting the discussion

Some of the artists

My Participation in the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale, Beijing, China 2019, Part Two

Coming in to land at Zurich airport

It is a month since I flew to China for the 8th Beijing International Art Biennale and I've only found the time now to collate images for my blog, both for my personal account of my trip and also for several articles that will follow over the next few weeks with photos of individual artworks.

For this post I'm adding photos of my journey and the first day in Beijing. It has always been exciting for me because though this was my fourth trip to China (third for the BIAB) I simply love China! I've had a deep interest in Chinese art since I was 11 and spent many hours copying ink paintings of animals and landscapes from library books. I've also enjoyed Chinese films since I was a student.

This time I flew with Swiss Air and changed aircraft at Zurich. I've flown Air France and China Southern in the past and this airline was just as good.

Flying out over Switzerland for a 10 hour flight to Beijing

Though I took off during the day on 28th August, about 5 hours of the final part of the flight was in darkness. Here are a few photos of coming in over Beijing and landing at dawn. We seemed to circle for ages over Beijing and its suburbs and I loved seeing all the flashing colourful lights below. Then as a strip of eastern sky lightened to pale orange-red, we began our descent. We landed just as the sun was about to rise! It was about 5.15am LT.

Beijing at night

Touchdown at Dawn!

It took quite a while to get through Terminal 3 - the first time I've landed at this largest terminal - and this included getting a small train across the airport. Then I collected my bags and walked hopefully out to Arrivals looking carefully for the BIAB representative. She greeted me so sweetly and I asked her to take a photo of me in all my sleepless glory....

I felt worse than this....though very excited

We went out to the bus once everyone had arrived, about 10 of us, and some of the artists were known to me from previous trips. Then we went to Terminal 2 to pick up other artists. Finally at about 9.am we set off on the colourful journey to Beijing which took about an hour. I loved seeing the trees lining the route because there is a particular type of tree with leaves that sway in the breezes like pieces of glittering silver coins. None of the other trees' leaves appeared like shimmering silver and I don't know the name of these trees but they seem endemic to China. I will post a video of them another time.

Arriving at the hotel was quite chaotic because of the time of day. Lots of artists were already in the foyer and we found out that we could not check in till 2pm so it was suggested that we have an early lunch - 11.30 - and wait. I met up with old friends and found two Chinese ladies who I was thrilled to meet up with again because I had lost touch with them since the 2015 BIAB. I was approached by an artist from Chile who told me she reads my blog!

Here are some photos of the foyer area. It is a Theatre hotel, showing genuine Chinese theatrical productions, and beautifully decorated with great attention to detail, as everything is in China.

Part of the foyer

Artists waiting to get their room keys

Entrance to the theatre

When I went for the amazing lunch in the dining hall I met several old friends. Altogether I guess about 150 artists were invited for the 4 days though not everyone arrived at the same time or even on the same day. Some arrived that night, some had been exploring China for several days before coming to the hotel.

Entrance to the dining hall

Some old and new friends

Then I was able to get the keys to my bedroom and it was on floor 5, room 5071. It was a really large room with a huge bed and very large bathroom. Being at the side of the hotel I had a view across a street and I realised that this was the area I had seen from the aircraft as we came in to land because I had noticed shadowy blocks of flats and worked out our flight route from the position of the moon and direction. Every night aircraft flew in over the hotel area though not so low as to be noisy.

It was by then 2.30pm and I decided to sleep for 3 hours because I had not slept for about 48 hours - I had waited overnight at Heathrow on the Tuesday night.

 View from my window

My room

That evening our supper was at an early hour - 5.30-7pm - and I met many more old friends and was really happy to see these artists again. (I will be writing about the artwork of some of these artists in a future post.) Mobile phones and cameras never ceased to take photos....

Our first supper (I am 3rd from the left in green cardigan) with most of this group being artists I knew

After our meal a group of us went for a walk in the area around our hotel. (I was quite regretful that I did not know about the David Hockney exhibition that some of the artists went off to see that evening.) In Beijing there are areas of Hutongs, which consist of traditional old houses called Siheyuans with narrow alleyways.  I really like these old houses and a painting may come from this. One such area was just behind our hotel and we went to explore it. In the past the Hutongs were being destroyed but now some are being preserved as tourist areas because they have such a charm and give a glimpse in to other aspects of Beijing. I could imagine how Beijing might have looked centuries ago with a sea of these grey buildings and their tiled, peaked roof tops. Their brickwork is a very particular grey.

So here is a collection of photos taken in the small Hutong area we walked around.

A Supermarket

A street in the Hutong area

Typical Siheyuan - grey bricks and peaked roof

Siheyuan showing peaked roof

A small restaurant in the Hutong area

Entrance to the restaurant which was full of people

I said to one of my friends that the lighting on the streets in Beijing, the bright, warm colours and the whole lively atmosphere really reminded me of Nicosia. It is quite a different feeling to the vibes of streets where I live in Tunbridge Wells, Kent (UK). 

We took a few group photos before returning to the hotel really tired. I slept a few hours and then jet lag set in. I was not able to throw it off for the four nights and spent most nights watching people on the road outside my window, people cycling late at night, a large van cleaning the roads with jets of water, and the sun rise, while drinking jasmine tea. If I am lucky enough to go again I will take sleeping tablets!

I am the second from the left.....

And a view of our hotel, Qiamen Jianguo.

Stay tuned, more to follow!