Bio – Anna Fairchild

Biography

Biography

Dr. Anna Fairchild BA, MA, DFA

Artist Statement

Anna Fairchild is a UK based artist and researcher working with sculpture, photography and audiovisual work. She has exhibited and curated in the UK, Turkey, & Europe.

Fairchild graduated from Kingston University with a BA(Hons) in 1988. In 1990 she moved to Istanbul to live and work as artist and teacher. Returning to the UK in 2001, she established a permanent studio, and in 2012 completed a Masters in Fine Art by Research at the University of Bedfordshire. In 2019 she was awarded a Professional Doctorate in Fine Art from The University of East London for her body practice led research, The Fluid and the Fixed; Materiality and Place.

The starting points for her work are aspects of organic and urban environments, with a particular interest in Brutalism and post war architecture, urban layering (palimpsests) and contemporary cartographic practices. Her interest in cartography takes the position that this includes a broad set of spatial practices such as drawing, movement, gesture. She uses experimental, process led methods of casting and analogue and camera-less photography and has more recently extended her audiovisual work through live collaborative performances using moving image and amplified acoustic sound on cello.

Inspired by ideas drawn from the space between utopian visions and dystopian futures in science fiction and novels such as Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backwards (1888) and Concrete Island by JG Ballard (1974), her work situates itself between objects excavated from the future and a grainy and crackling analogue world all around us. In fact, Bellamy’s novel said to have inspired Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City vision for Letchworth, has been a recent focus in making a new body of work. The interest here lies partially in what connects the protagonist’s experiences in both novels; a sense of disquieting dislocation, of place and time and of lost future visions; the tension between a stasis and sense of time having moved on unnoticed. In terms of sculptural and photographic processes, it is the way in which objects and surfaces may be able to convey these ideas, allowing the thinking to emerge through the process of making.

Solo Exhibitions

2024: Brutal Dream, The Broadway Gallery, Letchworth Garden City (awarded the Letchworth Open bursary 2023)
2022: Brutal-Lab, Departure Lounge Gallery, Luton supported by Luton Culture Trust
2021: Congruous, Salon 12, Saturation Point, London, sculpture installation & artist’s talk (Invited)
2021: Igneous Staring, Cloud 9 Residency exhibition funded by Arts Council England supported by Eastcheap Projects, Letchworth Garden City (Awarded)
2019: Mill Flow, Mill Green Museum Gallery, Hatfield, Hertfordshire. (Selected)
2019: The Fluid and the Fixed: Materiality and Place, University of East London
2018: Virtual Shift, (As You Change So Do I) Luton Culture/Arts Council England, The Storefront, Luton Bedfordshire. Sculpture and light installation (Invited)
2018: Displaced, Cement works, Container Space, UEL, London
2017: Displace, Plaster works, Container Space, UEL, London
2015: University of East London, The Light Well Gallery, (Exhibition and seminar presentation)

Group Exhibitions

2022: Brutal Light Foraging, AVX Luton, Hat House (Invited)
2022: Black Swan Arts, Frome (Selected)
2021: Cluster, Howards park Corner, supported by The Broadway Gallery Letchworth & Letchworth Culture Project (Selected) https://www.broadway-letchworth.com/cluster
2021: Correspondence 01 The Broadway Gallery Letchworth & Exeter Phoenix Gallery (Selected) https://www.broadway-letchworth.com/ANNA%20FAIRCHILD%20%26%20ANDY%20CLUER
2021: Jointly funded & supported by Arts Council England, Letchworth Culture Project & Eastcheap Studios Letchworth. Window Gallery Sidewinder, 2021 sculptural installation with coloured light (Selected)
2020: Blakefest 2020, Virtual Visions, curated by Mikey B Georgeson, Film work Songs of Fig and Apple (Invited)
2020: Looking for Obsidian short film invited by The University of East London, Sensorium, curated by Mikey B Georgeson
2020: The Querentologists, Dekka Arts Margate. With Sian-Kate Mooney & Hedley Roberts (Invited)
2020: Made With… Cross Lane Projects, Kendal, Cumbria; 5 Sculptors, curated by John Stephens (Invited)
2019: Inside, Inside/Refrain, The Stone Space, London. Sculpture and light installation (Selected)
2019: Miniscule Part 2, parallel programme at the Venice Biennial, Italy, curated by Vanya Balogh, Miniature direct cast sculpture (invited)
2019: Miniscule, Cross Lane Project Space, Cumbria, curated by Vanya Balogh, Miniature direct cast sculpture (invited)
2019: Pupa, Atelier de Melusine, France, In Between Things Text & Photographs (invited)
2019: Ask (Love) Art Festival, Istanbul Concept Gallery, Turkey, Istanbul Fluid, Short film projection (Invited)
2019: NoHat Performative Women’s Art Festival, Bedford. Virtual performative sculpture and drawing with QR code installation (Selected)
2018: Protocol, Q Park, London, curated by Vanya Balogh (invited)
2018: Inside, Inside/Outside, Eastbury Manor, Barking Residency (Selected)
2018: Glutative, Mill Green Museum, Hatfield, group exhibition, Digital scans direct printed on acrylic glass (invited)
2018: Fourth Year Professional Doctorate Showcase Exhibition 2018, UEL London
2018: Pint of Science; Creative Reactions. Collaborative project with Dr Dennis Chan, Cambridge University Clinical Neuroscientist (invited)
2018: Dry Run#8, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art Margate (Selected)
2017: The Crash, Q Park, London, Performative Drawing, curated by Vanya Balogh (invited)
2017: Experimental Film Club, Istanbul Fluid at Market Gallery, Glasgow, (Selected)
2017: Blakefest, UK, Performative Drawing piece, curated by Racheal Searle and Mikey Georgeson (invited)
2017: Salon Open Call, Angus Hughes Gallery, London. Photographic film still (selected)
2017: PassPort Brittania at Safehouse 1, Peckham London curated by Rekha Sameer (invited)
2016: Artists Toys, Curated by Rekha Sameer, Berlin, Germany (Invited)
2015: ARTMASTERS, The Truman Brewery, London, (curated and exhibited)
2009: Northern Print Biennial, Photographic print exhibited, Newcastle, UK (Selected)
1997: Cartographers curated by Zelimir Koscevic; International exhibition of work inspired by maps and cartography; travelled to Zagreb; Warsaw; Maribor (Selected)
1996: Harita Hatirarlar (Map Memories) British Council Gallery, sponsored exhibition, Ankara, Turkey (Selected)

Awards & Residencies

2023 The Letwchworth Open bursary award
2022: Shorlisted for the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award
2022: Drawing Conversations 4, Research presentation Brutal (Light) Foraging, Huddersfield University (Selected)
2021: Arts Council England funded CLOUD 9 residency, Eastcheap Project Space, Letchworth Garden City, Herts (Awarded)
2018: Inside, Inside/Outside, Joint residency with Mikey B Georgeson and Lucy Renton at Eastbury Tudor Manor, Barking, London (Selected)
2018: As You Change So Do I, Luton Culture and Arts Council England, Residency at The Storefront, Luton, Bedfordshire (Invited)
2016: Inside, Inside, Residency at the 2016 Istanbul Design Biennial parallel programme, Supported by Istanbul Foundation for Arts & Culture (IKSV) (curation and participation)
2016: Residency and exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf Docklands, London (Selected; curation and participation)
2016: Directional Forces Summer Residency, Psarades, West Macedonia, Greece in conjunction with University of East London (Invited)
2016: Artoll Residency, Dusseldorf, Germany, with Directional Forces at UEL (invited)
2016: Dungeness Residency & Exhibition, The Container Space, UEL, London (curation & participation)