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

  • 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
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 5

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    19 × 55cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 6

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    13 × 46cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 7

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    23 × 49cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 8

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    18 × 45cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 9

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    10 × 56cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 10

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    15 × 57cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 11

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    28 × 66cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 12

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    16 × 85cm
    Sold

  • Hay Doll 13

    Hay, recycled cloth, earth, charcoal, ash and wet wipes
    18 × 58cm
    Sold

  • Things That Fall

    Earth and charcoal on paper, mounted on board
    83 × 83cm
    £1500

  • 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
    Sold

  • Hay Tube

    Gesso, charcoal, earth and watercolour on paper laid on board
    18.2 × 28cm
    Unframed
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • Hard Head White

    Gesso, charcoal, earth and watercolour on paper laid on board
    21.5 × 27.5cm
    Unframed
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • Milking Parlour

    Charcoal and pastel on Bristol board
    25 × 32.5cm
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • Receiving Jars

    Charcoal and pastel on Bristol board
    25 × 32.5cm
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • Burnt Gruffy Ground

    Earth, ash and charcoal on paper
    58 × 58cm
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • Quilt 1

    Recycled cloth, hay, waxed thread, earth and wet wipes
    140 × 142cm
    Sold

  • 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
    Sold

  • Tithe 4

    Recycled cloth, earth, hay and waxed thread
    42 × 43 × 4.5cm
    Sold

  • Tithe 5

    Recycled cloth, earth, hay and waxed thread
    44 × 43 × 5.5cm
    Sold

  • Hard Head 1

    Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
    16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • Hard Head 2

    Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
    16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • Hard Head 3

    Gesso, earth and charcoal on recycled card, varnished
    16.2 × 16.2 × 3.2cm
    Signed verso
    Sold

  • 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
    Sold

  • 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
    Sold

  • 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
    Sold

  • Cluster 1–5

    Recycled card, pastel, graphite, gesso – waxed
    33 × 6 × 6cm approx
    No. 1 & 4 £160 each
    No.2 Sold
    No.3 Sold
    No.5 Sold

  • 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
    No. 2 Sold
    No.3 Sold

  • 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
    Sold

  • Hay and cob object 8

    Earth, sand, hay and cow dung – waxed
    Sold

  • 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
    Sold

  • Hay and cob object 13

    Earth, sand, hay, thread and cow dung – waxed
    16 × 4 × 3.5cm
    £90

  • 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 × 24cm

    Objects: Wood, charcoal and burnt grass
    £275 set

  • Stitched leaves

    Leaves and waxed thread
    17 × 17 × 3cm approx
    £100 each

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