S3E7 Frances Featherstone, Figurative Fine Artist

This week the British Fine Artist Frances Featherstone. Frances says her art is guided by an appreciation for storytelling. Narrative serves at the heart of her work with which she seeks to fill her paintings with ideas and conceptual depth. Her creative explorations revolve around the interplay between figures and interior spaces offering viewers a window into intimate emotions that are entangled with the spaces we occupy. Frances employs aerial perspectives to craft patterns seen from above that compress and flatten the spatial dimensions. These pieces venture beyond the constraints of conventional perception and seek to challenge our normal sense of space. One of two children—she has a brother Walter, Frances was born in 1976 in Roade, England, to parents Jane Gill, a teacher —formerly a silversmith and jeweler—and Michael Featherstone a furniture designer. Art runs throughout her family and Frances was always encouraged and supported in her talent which naturally led a formal art education. She achieved an Art Foundation Distinction and First Class Degree in Fine Art and Visual Culture from the University of the West of England, Bristol. before changing direction for her Post Grad in Interactive Multimedia at Bath Spa University, graduating in 2000. She worked as a Designer in the BBC’s Interactive Factual and Learning Department for six years. In 2006 she got married and started a family, at which point she returned to painting, firstly by taking commissions for portraits. Her work took off and she was quickly gaining recognition. In 2019 Frances was shortlisted for ‘Artist of the Year’ by ‘Artists and Illustrators Magazine’. In 2021 she won the ‘The Chair’s Purchase Prize’ at the ING Discerning Eye exhibition at The Mall Galleries in London. And in 2024 was awarded a Certificate of Commendation for ‘an exceptional work selected for the Royal Institute of Oil Painters’ annual exhibition. She has also won Sky Arts Portrait of the Week twice for her paintings of Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo and the singer Dannii Minogue. Frances is represented by the Fairfax Gallery in Tunbridge Wells and Arcadia Contemporary Gallery in New York. She lives near Groombridge in East Sussex with her husband Munir Hassan and children Sam and Layla.

Frances' links:
https://www.francesfeatherstone.co.uk/
Instagram: @francesfeatherstone

Some favorite female artists:
Paula Rego
Jenny Saville
Frida Kahlo
Joan Mitchell
Rachel Whiteread

Host: Chris Stafford
Produced by Hollowell Studios
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