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FAD Magazine covers contemporary art – News, Exhibitions and Interviews reported on from London

FAD Q&A: Gwenyth Fugard Painting winner Signature Art Prize 2013/14

fugarduntitled_6__0.jpg
‘Untitled 6’ by Gwenyth Fugard Materials: oil on hand stretched linen Size (H x W x D): 155 x 155 x 4 cm Year created: 2013

Over the next week FAD will be featuring Q&A’s with all the winners of The Signature Art Prize here we have Gwenyth Fugard winner of the painting category.

1.If you weren’t an artist, what else would you be?
If I wasn’t a fine artist I would be a designer of furniture, clothes, textile or rugs. I would continue to apply the same consideration of minimal line and colour within the design.

2. Can you tell us more about your work and what are the main ideas you would like to express?
My recent work is created with a system of criteria and boundaries to be observed while navigating the neutrality
of the square format. This plane provides a means to depict my concerns about mass, accumulation and dispersion. Borders
and boundaries appear to be corroding while other zones remain solid. I structure folds into the prepared linen and create a series of interventions and obstructions during the coverage of oil paint, leaving trace and separation evident. An illusionary space emerges suggesting an existing condition or dynamic. It is the process of constructing the composition within the constraints of the imposed system that is of importance during the making. Despite the restrictions evident, I attempt to create the illusion of openness and the notion of multiple options yet to be configured.

3. How do you start the process of making work?
I keep an ongoing collection of working drawings in graphite, on paper, which realise the variable options of navigating the square. I usually work on a series of paintings. For example my recent paintings are created around the consideration of the ‘corner’. So, the composition of a new painting is realised on paper prior to embarking upon the canvas. However, the painting takes on a life of its own during the making and this is when the unexpected occurs.

4. Do you consider the viewer, when making your work?
The viewer is always considered when creating a new work. Without the viewer a painting is not realised or in the world.

5. Name 3 artists that have inspired your work?
In the early stages of my final year at Central St Martins, I departed from representation. The artists I was investigating at the time and finding so inspiring, were two of the leaders in early abstraction – Robert Ryman and Barnett Newman. Their rigorous exploration of minimalism inspired a new direction in my own work. One of the contemporary artists I find inspirational is Jacob Kassay, who lives and works in USA.

6. Is The Signature Art prize the first art prize you have won?
The Signature Art Prize is my first art prize.

7. What are your plans for the rest of the year?
I shall be continuing to paint and explore the printing side of my practice, to build up a good body of work for an exhibition later this year.

8. Final question, if you had $49,000 to spend on an artist who would it be?
A would love to own a Robert Ryman or a Jacob Kassay. However, I am not so confident that the substantial sum of $49,000 would be sufficient to own an original painting and so I would be delighted to own one of their working drawings.

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