This month, from 4-28 June, Fiona McIntyre brings her exhibition Magic & Medicine to Sandra Higgins Art in Milsom Place. The collection explores her interpretation of the spiritual nature of trees and water, their healing powers, and their connection to mythical goddesses. She speaks to Isabelle Blakeney about her work and her artistic and spiritual journey.
Every artist has their own way of seeing the world and of expressing it through their creative work. For Fiona McIntyre, her focus on the natural world, and trees in particular, is a highly spiritual experience.
Fiona’s artistic education has been eclectic: from a childhood in a creative family in Kenya to the traditional teachings of Edinburgh Art School, then on to a degree in Sweden where she was educated in Surrealism, then inspired by Expressionists Antoni Tàpies and Miró while studying for her Masters in Barcelona. She describes this alchemy of influence as a mix between the ordered and the intuitive – the latter specifically tuning into her feminine side. It’s this amalgamation that manifested itself in her new exhibition Magic & Medicine.
The work for the exhibition was developed during a residency where Fiona moved to a cottage in Clifford Chambers, a tiny hamlet outside Stratford upon Avon, and for seven weeks she spent day after day immersed in plein air painting. But she had no clear plan.
“I walked around for ages trying to find out what my subject would be. And I found this little walkway that took you along a river bank which is flanked by hundreds of these incredible willow trees. I just thought, ‘I’ve got to start drawing one of them’. And then I drew another, and another.”
Fiona sets up her structures for creativity, cleaning and preparing, but then lets her intuitive side take over. “That’s what I was doing when I was scouting along that river, waiting for a connection. It was the willow trees that were talking to me. I felt that the trees were literally drawing me in as I was drawing them.”
This is quite some level of immersion. In this context, it’s no surprise to discover that one of the central themes of Fiona’s exhibition is healing. Not just in a physical sense, but mentally, in the way that her artwork had connected her to the healing powers of time and nature.
“When I arrived in Clifford Chambers I was suffering from mild anxiety. And when I started researching willow trees, I discovered their healing properties. Aspirin, which we use to treat depression and anxiety and pain, is made from a chemical called salicin that comes from willow trees. For years people would brew it; they’d soak and cook the bark and make it into a tea and drink it. I’d been thinking, ‘why are they having this effect on me?’ And then I realised that they were healing me.”
The willows have these very long, bendy tendrils, which drop into the beautiful glassy water, where you get little filigree patterns emanating out like magic…
This highly charged exhibition comprises drawings of the willows and the river in lump earth pigments and graphite, and ‘shadow paintings’ made by suspending foraged branches and painting their shadows into pools of pigmented water.
“I got the sense of time unfolding when I was sitting next to slow moving water. The willows have these very long, bendy tendrils. which drop into this beautiful glassy water, where you get little filigree patterns emanating out like magic, all the way to the edges of the river banks. So I became aware of that relationship between those trees and the water. There’s a sort of gentleness to them and a sort of extreme sensitivity.”
Also on display will be etchings of Creation Goddesses on two copperplates and smaller paintings on gesso panels working with mineral pigments in oil applied in thin layers, combined with graphite drawings. These are rooted in the symbiotic healing nature of the rivers and the trees, which revealed to Fiona a connection to Hecate: the Greek moon and willow goddess.
“It became so clear to me that it was about ancient goddesses connecting to me in my hour of need. There’s Venus, rising out of the water, and Cailleah Bheara, the Celtic Creation Goddess, who are these other-worldly figures emanating out of standing stones. It’s all about feminine energy, mythological creatures and goddesses who have a direct interaction with the willow trees and their ability to heal us. It’s about the time continuum.”
Fiona deepened her connection to the earth through the use of natural mineral pigments: paints made from natural elements like ochre, lapis lazuli and malachite. “The natural pigment idea came about as I started work on a new exhibition focusing on a Sacred Earth theme. It struck me that using modern paint was no longer enough. How can you make sacred work with mass-manufactured paint?”
Fiona explains that this is something that audiences really resonated with when the show launched at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester. “The effect that it had on people was really profound, and part of that was the materials that I’m using. They’re also incredibly beautiful and sensitive, and as a result they carry their own spiritual value.”
“I think it’s just the experience of the unfolding of time, really. This is what changes your perception, your visual perception as an artist. That is the most profound thing to come out of this experience for me.”
Art consultant Sandra Higgins has long-espoused Fiona’s work and the pair have collaborated on several shows, including Shades of Green, exhibited at the RUH, and as co-curators on Paradise Found at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton, Devon.
“Sandra Higgins has a unique vision, inviting distinguished artists to exhibit in her gallery and providing dynamic venues for serious art collectors,” says Fiona. “The gallery is making Bath a real destination for authentic contemporary art outside of London.”
Magic & Medicine will be at Sandra Higgins Art, Unit 11, Milsom Place, Bath BA1 1DN from 4–28 June. During the exhibition, Fiona will be giving workshops in the gallery called ‘Plants Into Inks’. Book with sandra@sandrahiggins.com or via Eventbrite.
sandrahiggins.art; fionamcintyre.com