A couple of months ago I started my series ‘Shouldering the Forest’ which challenges the way women are excluded and marginalised in virtually every aspect of society and the work draws on statistical graphs and highly detailed painting and collage. The series is inspired by a quip from an older white privileged English male creative who advised that I shouldn’t let people think I had a chip on my shoulder about being a woman artist from a working class Irish background! 

Anyway, this first painting collage looks at the statistics of maternal mortality during and after childbirth. This is an issue close to my heart having come close to death myself during a late miscarriage and witnessing my daughter's health complications during childbirth. The stratified landscape through the window is made up of the causes of maternal mortality - haemorrhage & maternal infections among the most significant. Historically this was also the case. Although the numbers are much lower this century than in previous times, there has been a significant rise in maternal mortality in the UK since 2021. 

Each case of maternal mortality will have catastrophic impact on their families and in turn impacts on our wider society.

Crossing Over # 1, 2 & 3 have been selected for 'The Path' Exhibition at Palazzo Pisani-Rivedin during the Venice Biennale 2024. The show opens on 3 September and runs until 3 November. I will be present at the Opening event on 3 September. If you would like to attend please contact me and I will make sure you get an invitation!

Fion Gunn - Sunrise to Sunset, 2023, papers, acrylic, collage, thread, 102 x 66cm

This is one of the artworks I'm taking to Egypt in February/March when my work will be presented there. At a time when so many people around the globe are trying to escape conflict and poverty I want to keep telling the story of how human beings have always migrated and moved around the world. Birds have no borders but nature itself - maybe we should be think about that and be more accepting and welcoming of migration generally.

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I created this short film to commemorate the baby I lost in 1994.
It is my way to accept grief and transform it,  a visual poem about lost potentials. Loss & Gain has been made  during my residency at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool 2022-23. It is a digital collage which combines film created in VR with film by the artist along with overlays, footage & 3D models from other sources.
When I presented the film at University of Liverpool on 1 December I did so in the context of a workshop about how art and the rituals we create can help us to accept grief and loss. It was a meaningful event and I am very grateful for the responses of all those who attended. I hope that what we shared will impact us all positively as we continue in our lives.

Visitors of all ages have been truly immersed in my Arrivals/Departures installation at the exhibition of the same name @ Victoria Gallery & Museum Liverpool! It has been so rewarding for me as an artist to witness such a great response. Last Friday Colm Brophy, Minister for Overseas Development & Diaspora, Ireland visited the exhibition and as he sat fascinated in the space declared that it was 'magical!'

A Tale of Two Cities 2022, canvas, acrylic, collage, gold & silver leaf, 190 x 300cm
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Since showing work at Tate Liverpool in 2019 and having some time to explore the city, meet people and make connections here, I have thought a lot about the similarities and differences, the shared history and mirrored perspectives of Dublin and Liverpool. In these panels, the cities, their rivers, architecture, cultures and histories face each other.
 
There is a porous boundary and stories that need telling.
 
Nature however, moves to and fro, birds, fish and seals fly, swim and breed between the coastlines, these migrations do not ask permission and do not discriminate it is the ebb and flow of a shared ecology. The mix of peoples, communities and cultures born of empire and exploitation is now the lifeblood of these cities and their hinterlands.

As I finalise work for my solo show Arrivals/Departures at the VG&M which will open on 30 July and end on 23 December, I reflect on the many changes in our world since the exhibition was arranged. This has been happening on a global level but also on an intensely personal one and we need to be kind to one another above all else. I am blessed to be working with a great team of people and an institution that has an inclusive an visionary approach. Here is 'Lifeboat' one of the seven 3D artworks which was scanned by the amazing Photogrammetry Team there. These 3D scans are being transformed into AR pop ups which will be accessible at locations all around the city. 

Lifeboat, 2022 mixed media, 80x78x66cm 
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Photo credit Glyn Jones

                                             Everybody's Life - Fion Gunn, 2022 , acrylic, handmade papers, collage, 76x56cm 

This artwork is a homage to New York artist Louise Nevelson. I discovered her work during my foundation year at art college and it had a lasting impact on me.  Her process of using scrap materials and creating monumental architectural artworks has been a huge inspiration. I too work with recycled materials, the rejected flotsam and jetsam of others, the objects discarded and neglected which carry with them a complicated history, narratives that are not necessarily obvious. This painting collage features some aspects which are evident in Nevelson's work and integrates many of my own - there's a reference to the house I grew up in, furniture which has been a personal obsession and instead of the monolithic sculptural solidity of her work, mine is full of holes and windows!
The title for this work is taken from Nevelson’s own words ‘My life is like everybody's life' it is a feeling which I share. An artist's life is not a romantic one, we have the same challenges as everyone else in the world and disappointment is always snapping at our heels. Understanding this can help to make us better artists, help us to feel less like outsiders and enable us to welcome viewers into our world in a generous way.