Showcase: Fionna Madigan

The work: Fionna Madigan, Cottles Bridge Bushscape. Oil paint and cold wax on aluminium panel, 82cm x 82cm.

Fionna Madigan’s art is informed by her immediate environment. While not purely abstract, her work leaves the viewer with the impression of a ghostly landscape. In Cottles Bridge Landscape, forms are suggested but not explicit, present but not definable. Ambiguity of scale is important to the artist, who is interested in how macro and micro realities coexist. Fionna maps out the composition of her works, which are usually large and involve her entire body in a physical process of mark making. What appears as a landscape in Cottles Bridge Landscape could also be the fine details of a leaf. The snail-like, trailing and squiggling patterns are created through Fionna’s use of oil paint mixed with a cold wax medium, which suspends the colour pigment and allows Fionna to work with multiple layers of colour at a time. At one with her environment, Fionna portrays soft, shrouded and temporal landscapes which translate the transience of time and place.