At Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough
2 – 4pm, 27 August 2021
Introducing co-commissioned artist Fiona Larkin, who will be working with MIMA and the Women Artists of the North East Library to respond to the Middlesbrough collection and the Library towards new work.
Join us for this Open Library to hear about Fiona’s practice and how she is approaching the commission. Fiona began her research for the commission in July this year and has been looking specifically at the work and legacy of Ethel Guymer, painter and founding member of the Cleveland Art Society. Fiona is using her own artistic practice, which includes drawing, writing, textiles photography and moving image to consider the aesthetic and social significance of Guymer’s work. In this event she’ll share some of her early research and talk about how she is approaching the commission – and she’s really keen to meet with people locally who may know more about Ethel, who are familiar with her work, or who may be able to shed light on the ideas and artistic community her paintings were part of.
Women Artists of the North East Library partnered with MIMA for this co-commission. Fiona Larking will present this new work in 2023.
Fiona Larkin is an Irish artist living and working in Whitley Bay. She works mainly in photography and moving image, which stems from a practice of performance to camera work. She is concerned with ideas of perspective shift, of long looking and the possibility for alongsideness as a productive and creative structure.
Fiona received an MFA from the University of Ulster in 2002. She has participated in International residencies in Tokyo and New York and has been the recipient of several Arts Council NI awards. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally with work shown in Belfast, Derry, Dublin, Spain and Japan. From 2007-2010 she taught Fine Art in University of Ulster, Belfast and currently teaches at Northumbria. Fiona holds a PhD from Northumbria University. Thesis titled ‘Empathic Attention; Feeling Into and Intimacy in Contemporary Art Practice’ (2018).
