Fiona Clucas

FIONA CLUCAS was born in Liverpool in 1963 into a creative family, with a mother who painted and made her own pottery and a father who loved sailing.  Her interest in drawing and painting, particularly animals, developed as a young girl and from the age of thirteen she was determined to go to art college.  After completing an art foundation course at Leicester Polytechnic in 1981, she continued to study art at Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology and gained a BA in Fine Arts (Painting) in 1985. 

Whilst on foundation course she visited a travelling circus and became fascinated with the travelling people and their way of life.  Following in the footsteps of artists such as Dame Laura Knight, she followed circuses around the country and based her thesis and final degree show on the visual world of the circus.  After graduating, she spent the summer and autumn at Blackpool tower circus, working as an usherette and painting the show on her days off.  This culminated in a solo show at Leicester's Haymarket theatre. She then took up a position as a part time teacher of art and moved into the city of Leicester.  Although enjoying teaching, the pull of the countryside was very strong and she moved to the Northamptonshire border and, later, to Cumbria where she has lived since 1995.

I have always been fascinated by birds and for many years now they have been a strong focal point in my work, sometimes appearing as mere dots on the horizon.  To me they bring a sense of scale both to the wider landscape as well as to the more intimate studies within garden and hedgerow.

Creating a back drop for my birds, portraying the varied patterns and textures of land and sea into paint I find exciting.  The creative process of building up surfaces, sometimes printing and the continuous layering of colour upon colour is absorbing.

Locations providing inspiration for me vary from my own garden at home to some of nature’s wilder habitats.  My paintings in this exhibition feature just some of my favourite places, including coastal situations around western and eastern Scotland.

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