Global showings for Durban artist Fiona Kirkwood
Globally respected Durban multi-media artist, Fiona Kirkwood, has been honoured to have works currently on show in major exhibitions – in Miami, in Bielsko Biala, Poland and closer to home, in Stellenbosch.
She is currently an invited artist, exhibiting her latest installation, Stay Home, Stay Safe (2022), in an important international show – the International Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art at Mifa Miami USA, curated by Yosi Anaya and Maria Ortega.
The film of Stay Home, Stay Safe, has just been selected to be shown on Quo Vadis? – the seventh International Riga Textile and Fibre Art Triennial opening on June 15, 2023, at the Art Museum in Riga, Latvia. The competition was fierce: 273 entrants from 43 countries, with only 79 artworks were selected from 30 countries.
“Stay Home, Stay Safe is one of the buzz word phrases of the Covid Pandemic, which refers to self-protection. Many of us have spent much of the last two years adhering to this phrase and its meaning and implications,” explains Kirkwood. The installation uses ishweshwe and sheer voile fabrics, cloth masks and safety pins. “The safety pins featuring in my work were inserted during the first lockdown in April 2020. I liked the irony of using safety pins to create a transparent shroud of viruses.” The word “Ubuntu” (I am because you are) features in the artwork, “reminding us that we each affect others in our life choices. We live in a global world where with air travel and movement of people we are able to infect each other,” she explains.
While Kirkwood’s pieces can be seen globally, she is delighted to be part of a group South African exhibition, Diversity Fibre Art Group Exhibition (guest curator Dal Botha) at the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch, with her installation “Simunye – We Are One” (2014). This is the first time this piece is being shown in South Africa, having returned from being on show internationally.
These two new accolades follow hot on the heels of being part of an international show the V1 Textile Art of Today with her film Rain (2020) which has been shown in five cities in four adjacent European countries and closes in January 2023 – winning an international award the Visegrad Award in every one of the four countries. Rain comments on how climate change is affecting rainfall patterns. The exhibition and her film has been shown in museums and galleries in, Bratislava and Poprad, Slovakia; Uherske Hradiste Czech Republic; Budapest Hungary and is currently on show in Bielsko Biala Poland.
The installation, Rain won a Silver Medal in a major international show “From Lausanne to Beijing” curated out of Beijing China which was viewed online exhibiting alongside some of the most respected global art makers working today.
Fiona Kirkwood lives and works in Durban and is known for her cutting-edge manner in which she combines fine art with textiles to create highly textured multi-media conceptual works. Her works are usually monumental, dramatic and manifest a powerful physical presence which explores magical, ritual, social, political, environmental, and spiritual and identity themes.
Kirkwood said: “After these very troubled years of CoViD 19, I am deeply grateful that my artwork is being appreciated globally, as well as in South Africa.”
For more info, or to see the artworks: Visit: www.fionakirkwood.co.za
Global Showings For Durban Artist Fiona Kirkwood
