The four artists who make up the Fierce Tales Collective have created a show that explores the female experience within the fenland landscape. The group covers multiple artistic disciplines including traditional oil painting, printmaking, mixed media and expressive intuitive painting. Each artist has a story to tell of art, faith, growth intertwined with their sense of mortality, all of which weave beautifully back into the seasons, whether personal or within nature herself.
Lizzie Ault @talesfromthefen
Explores female folk narratives and histories within the fenland landscape with her intricate, illustrative lino cuts, drypoint etchings and collages. From swan maidens to pagan goddesses she has painstakingly researched the folklore of the region and found stories that reflect the feminine experience and a connection with the natural world that has long been lost.
Kristin VG Bailey @notestotreasure
Using mixed media, Kristin explores faith using colour through meditative intuitive painting. Not shy of colour, the layers of paint and mark making combine to collate expressive vibrant abstract paintings. Celebrating the founding of the city of Ely, her stylised, iconastasis interpretation of Etheldreda entitled St Audrey, cradling a pink cathedral, reminds us that this city is founded on a woman's faith. Alongside this she seeks to connect back to our locality through landscape, using bold marks and colour which is synonymous throughout her work.
Laura Pearson-Clark @artintheburrow
Observes and exaggerates the decorative patterns and bold colours found in the details of nature to create unique mixed media compositions. There’s a distinct fusion of different cultural influences seen within her work from previous travels overseas and a playful conversation between Art and Science. Nature intertwining with the recurring theme of motherhood alongside her own creative narrative does not go unnoticed.
Ella Wolfnoth @ellawolfnoth
Works in oil paint on panel, primed with traditionally made gesso. Paintings are inspired by the fragility and beauty of nature, weaving stories and tales into her work, with painted words, and symbolic meanings from dark fairy tales. Working in veil like layers building up the transitions of paint, from grisaille to final colour layers.
The artists have all produced individual bodies of evocative, intricate and beautiful work which on one level are deeply personal but also resonate universally. The show promises to give a unique view of life in East Anglia exploring history, nature, folklore, magic and the feminine. It is certainly one not to be missed.