Artist’s Statement 

My painting is landscape-based, but it asks questions about our human connections to the natural world. It is grounded in my island home of Guernsey, but examines universal issues linked to the notion of ‘contested landscapes’. This taps into the social, political, and environmental; personal and collective memory; and the conflict between the natural world and the ‘manmade'. Both landscape and colour act as metaphors for many interconnected human experiences: loss, desire, transience, otherness, and the space between us.

Drawing in the landscape is often my starting point, making me think of past events that have affected the topography, the people and their histories. This includes changes in industry from farming, fishing and horticulture, to tourism and the offshore finance industry. Recent work draws on the occupation of the Island by the Nazis during World War II.

The shapeshifting nature of oil paint allows chance and accident to work alongside deliberation and intuition, pushing work into unexpected directions at times. The surface of the painting acts as a site of accumulation, where mark and colour are laid down, disrupted, and reworked, allowing the past to surface obliquely. A work is complete when it feels emotionally charged and autonomous but remains open for the viewer to make their own connections.

Artist’s Bio

Fiona Richmond (b. Guernsey, Channel Islands) is a painter living and working in Guernsey. She has had solo exhibitions in Guernsey and Stockton on Tees, and has been included in group exhibitions at venues including the Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery, CCA Galleries International, Jersey, Candid Arts Trust, Islington, and the Dispensary Gallery, Wrexham. In 2021 she was awarded the Guernsey Arts Open Prize.

She is part of Split Collective which is a group of painters and sculptors who met through Turps Banana Art School in 2024/25.

Fiona holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Visual Art (Fine Art) and Art History from Middlesex University.