Fionna Madigan is an Australian artist with a BFA from the Victorian College of the Arts and a Diploma of Education and Studio Arts from the University of Melbourne. Madigan is primarily an abstract landscape painter and is currently an Artist in Residence a the Dunmoochin Foundation, Cottles Bridge, Victoria, Australia. Fionna Madigan earned a place as a Finalist in the 3rd Edition of the Boynes Emerging Artist Award.

What inspired you to start creating art?

As a child, creating art was my ‘happy place’; a place which offered reprieve from the tensions of family life and a place I felt a sense of spaciousness, freedom and autonomy. As an adult my creative concerns became more grown-up and formalised and I was primarily inspired by other Australian landscape artists, particularly Brett Whitley, Fred Williams, John Wolseley and Vali Myers.

What inspires your work now?

I am drawn to a fertile zone between abstraction and realism and I am particularly satisfied when my paintings straddle these genres. I want the image to be mutable; I like it when scale is ambiguous, when the macro and the micro slide in and out of awareness, when I’m not quite sure if I’m looking at an aerial view or the patterns on a leaf because both visual realities co-exist.

I am interested in the geometry, subtle colour shifts and the sensed experience of being in, and of, the natural world. I like to work on a reasonably large scale so that I have an experience of my body being in relationship to the environment and to the painting. I draw on breathwork and mindfulness techniques when I paint, to amplify a sense of immediacy and presence.

What mediums do you work in and experiment with?

I work in oil paint and cold wax medium. CWM is a mixture of beeswax, a ‘hardener’ (damar or alkyd resin) and a solvent which ‘cures’ the wax. It is different to encaustic. The medium suspends the colour pigment for a period of time, allowing me to work with a number of layers at once, affording me a wondrous window of experimentation. I work on archival aluminum and use a metal etch base primer (which prevents oxidization). Depending on the color palette, I sometimes like to leave an aluminum boarder.

Are there any particular brands of art supplies you prefer using?

I use Gamblins Cold Wax Medium because I am too lazy to make up my own, because they use a low toxic solvent and because they offer excellent customer support. And I use Art Spectrum oil paint because it an excellent quality Australian brand and I like to keep my purchases local where I can.

Do you have any particular ways that you work through a creative block?

Sometimes I have to walk away from a painting, hide it to stop me tampering with it and simply leave it alone ‘to give it some time to think about itself’ – as opposed to overworking into a lifeless sludge. I can be ‘too close’ to the action, lose all perspective and not be able to see the possibilities that exist in terms of taking an image forward. A little bit of time and distance does wonders (easier said than done!)

Can you give any piece of advice on what you have learned while you practiced your craft?

Don’t be pressured into feeling overly beholden to whatever the prevailing creative academic hegemony decrees is the ‘right kind of art’. Follow artists whose work enlivens or speaks to you in some way.

How did you manage the need for perfection within your work?

Fortunately for me, perfection is not something I am particularly interested in. I encourage random occurrences. Improvisation and transience are integral concepts to my creative endeavour. I like to create chaos and then fight, strategise and pray a way out of it. There are no mistakes, all process contributes to a rich surface history. I’m not looking for perfection but I am looking and feeling for that gestalt áh ha’ moment when all the elements are conversing in a cohesive and way.

To view more of Fionna Madigan’s work

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