Fran Donovan MA (European Fine Art)

Artist’s Statement

My paintings and prints are a response to the landscapes of my local areas of Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset and further afield in the hot arid areas of Australia, USA and Spain.

Collecting information in sketchbooks reminds and helps me define “my idea of what I see”. The idea that the landscape stretches on forever has a strong draw. The more carefully I consider how to define my work the more I am aware of the conflicts.

The colours, shapes and marks are not an exact or perfect form and that is not important to me. I want to capture a mood, the drama of the sea and shore and the colours of the places I visit.

My concerns about the wider world of climate change and its implications have affected my work recently unleashing my imagination making me more aware of the unpredictability we face today and the issues at stake. “If only we had listened”.

The following quotation from Thomas Traherne (1636 — 1674) reflects my interest in the land and energy of the sea which is the subject of my works:

“You never enjoy the world aright, til the sea itself floweth in your veins, til you are clothed with the Heavens and crowned with the stars and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world. Til your spirit filleth the whole world and the stars are your jewels; til you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the whole world was made.”