Fiona Hingston
For the past three decades, British artist Fiona Hingston's practice has been informed by a landscape that is no more or less special than other places to be found in the South West.
She lives and works in a small village on the edge of the Mendip Hills where her rooted intimacy to this particular place deepens her relationship to it year on year - there is always something new to investigate, to archive and to celebrate through a methodology of collecting, making and drawing. Materiality and making are at the core of her practice.
I want a relationship with the materials I’m using, through developing personal connections that deepens my friendship and sense of place – getting the best from it, an honouring.
My drawings are made on paper surfaces prepared and sealed with layered combinations that include; earth, ash, emulsion, graphite, charcoal and indian ink.
The textured surface is central to the work. It took me a while to appreciate that one surface mixture will not do for every drawing, so there is often a lot of experimentation before the surface feels right.
Once prepared, drawings are developed by erasing this surface using a variety of tools. The image is drawn with a knife blade and improvised tools. I’m constantly finding new tools to work with, like the adapted craft drill I use as an eraser and lengths of willow stick with wire wool attached at the end used for sanding.
Scraping back, excavating, constantly revealing and refining the subject and exposing stains and imperfections over what can be long periods of time, embeds an image both in the paper and in my mind. It takes time to experiment, fail, reflect, abandon, remake – leading to an accumulation of knowledge (through the investigation of materials, medium and process) that allows things to reveal themselves. This is the most frustrating time as I try to make the connection between surface and subject. Often drawings will hang around for months, occasionally years and then be reworked.
Fiona Hingston
“In a famous passage about getting lost as a child on Emmonsales Heath, John Clare wrote about walking along the furze (gorse) '...until I came out of my knowledge when the very wild flowers and birds seemed to forget me.' His knowledge was another way of saying his familiar ground, the place he knew, but also intimates that knowledge is itself a function of place, in which one’s capacity to make sense of things, to generate understanding, is a product of being someway rooted and at home, and that even more strikingly, this sense of home is reciprocal: that one doesn’t just know, but is known.”
The Garden Against Time – Olivia Laing, pub. Picador 2024
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Hay Doll 1
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
16 × 52cm
Sold -
Hay Doll 2
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
15 × 53cm
Sold -
Hay Doll 3
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
15 × 60cm
Sold -
Hay Doll 4
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
52 × 18cm
£250 -
Hay Doll 5
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
19 × 55cm
£250 -
Hay Doll 6
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
13 × 46cm
£225 -
Hay Doll 7
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
23 × 49cm
£225 -
Hay Doll 8
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
18 × 45cm
£225 -
Hay Doll 9
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
10 × 56cm
£225 -
Hay Doll 10
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
15 × 57cm
£225 -
Hay Doll 11
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
28 × 66cm
£275 -
Hay Doll 12
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
16 × 85cm
£250 -
Hay Doll 13
Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
18 × 58cm
£225
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Furrow
Gessoed tissue, earth, dung and charcoal on paper
87 × 115cm
Signed verso
£5000 -
Furrow 2
Gessoed tissue, earth, dung and charcoal on paper
49 × 68cm
Signed verso
£1200 -
Hay Tube
Gesso, charcoal, earth and watercolour on paper laid on board
18.2 × 28cm
Unframed
Signed verso
£200 -
Hard Head White
Gesso, charcoal, earth and watercolour on paper laid on board
21.5 × 27.5cm
Unframed
Signed verso
£250 -
Milking Parlour
Charcoal and pastel on Bristol board
25 × 32.5cm
Signed verso
£550 -
Receiving Jars
Charcoal and pastel on Bristol board
25 × 32.5cm
Signed verso
£550 -
Burnt Gruffy Ground
Earth, ash and charcoal on paper
58 × 58cm
Signed verso
£1200
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Quilt 1
Recycled cloth, hay, waxed thread, earth and wet wipes
140 × 142cm
£1200 -
Quilt 2
Recycled cloth, hay, waxed thread, earth and wet wipes
114 × 112cm
£750 -
Tithe 1
Recycled cloth, earth, hay and waxed thread
38 × 46 × 1cm
£450 -
Tithe 2
Recycled cloth, earth, hay and waxed thread
46 × 38 × 5cm
£450 -
Tithe 3
Recycled cloth, earth, hay and waxed thread
44 × 45 × 5cm
£450 -
Tithe 4
Recycled cloth, earth, hay and waxed thread
42 × 43 × 4.5cm
£450 -
Tithe 5
Recycled cloth, earth, hay and waxed thread
44 × 43 × 5.5cm
£450
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Hard Head 1
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 2
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 3
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 4
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 5
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 6
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 7
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 8
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 9
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 10
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 11
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250 -
Hard Head 12
Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
Signed verso
£250
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Trig Points
Stitched hay, wood, earth, sand and cow dung
50 × 27 × 18cm
39 × 23 × 16cm
£900 set two -
Hay Form
Stitched hay
£250 -
Hay and cob object 1
Earth, sand, hay, wax and cow dung
20 × 24 × 5.5cm
£160 -
Hay and cob objects 2/3
Earth, sand, hay, wax and cow dung
68 × 23 × 13cm
59 × 16 × 8cm
£300 each -
Hay and cob object 4
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung
39 × 15 × 15cm
£220 -
Hay and cob object 5
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung
37 × 15 × 19cm
£220 -
Hay and cob object 6
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
13 × 8 × 7cm
£130 -
Hay and cob object 7
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
10 × 13 × 5cm
£130 -
Hay and cob object 8
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
£130 -
Hay and cob object 9
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
17 × 15 × 4cm
£130 -
Hay and cob object 10
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
16 × 8 × 5cm
£130 -
Hay and cob object 11
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
11 × 10 × 9cm
£130 -
Hay and cob object 12
Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
13 × 5.5 × 3cm
£90 -
Hay and cob object 13
Earth, sand, hay, thread and cow dung – waxed
16 × 4 × 3.5cm
£90 -
Cluster 1–5
Recycled card, pastel, graphite, gesso – waxed
33 × 6 × 6cm approx
£160 each -
Hay Cluster
Stitched hay
Top 7 x 7 × 21cm
Right 5 x 5 × 16cm
Bottom 9 × 2.5 × 24cm
£275 set -
Bowl and objects
Bowl: Stitched willow bark and waxed thread
32 × 24cmObjects: Wood, charcoal and burnt grass
£275 set -
Stitched leaves
Leaves and waxed thread
17 × 17 × 3cm approx
£100 each