Devon based artist Frances Gynn RWA makes work informed by environmental issues. Through drawings and paintings her practice reflects growing concerns over the effects of plastics in the ecosystem, deforestation, habitat loss and the decline of precious species.
Frances Gynn graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art from the University of Exeter in 2000. She has participated in numerous site-specific events and exhibitions, including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and in 2018 and 2019 she was selected for the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition. In 2018 she was awarded a Fellowship at The Bogliasco Foundation, Italy and in 2019 she was elected as a Royal West of England Academy Academician. Her recent Public Erasure projects have focused on drawing and performing an interactive body of work on endangered species.
“My work has, for some time, been informed by nature and man’s engagement with it. As plastics become more evident in the landscape, my artistic practice reflects a growing concern for the human effect on the environment. Deforestation and tree clearing have led to a direct loss of many species as well as a reduction in available food, shelter and breeding habitats. To emphasise the demise of many species of the natural world, I invite the public to erase one of my drawn organisms as a public interactive performance. Process is an important part of my work, echoing the characteristics of my subject. I layer diluted oil paint, use paint resists, rub away paint with sandpaper and take paint castings of found plastic objects which I incorporate into my paintings”.