Juno Clarkson Firth

Artist Statement

I’m Juno Clarkson Firth, a Glasgow born and based Painter and Collage Artist completing my (BA) Painting degree at Edinburgh College of Art.
 
My Art practice is driven by my enjoyment in expressively creating narrative through collage in my art, coupled with my love of the materiality and textures I can create through my oil painting.

I began my final year with a narrative project which had been sparked by a dream. This being faces made of collage or felt, wrapped up in cloth. My observation of various structures of folding fabrics and rippling sellotape, allowed me to abstract these forms with my layered oil paintings so that the forms become unrecognisable from their original. 
I went on to focus this painting technique past fabrics and onto foxglove flowers and their petals as I pushed the narrative of my work onto a more figurative path.
This was inspired by the folklore of these folks-gloves and their meaning’s link to my practice which explores the theme of hiding and emerging. Mythology and Folklore are something which habitually inspires my Art practice and research points.

I began collecting all the paper hands from donated magazines which I find allow me to create movement and dance-like expression with their varied poses. 
And so, this evolved the relationship between the figures and the painting into one where the arms dive out of the painted crevasses. I am re-contextualising the glamorous poses found in fashion magazines into my own narrative compositions. Often, the depth and clear photography of these hands and arms will contrast with my shiny, abstracted painted textures.

My central degree-show piece explores the three elements of the bed. The complete piece is made of three muslin canvases - stacked yet spaced above each other, giving the impression of pillows, on top of duvets, on top of mattress. The top panel shows my exploration into depth in form and the theme of being held, with the pillows holding the collage faces as they would the weight of a rested head. The middle canvas holds energetic, flowing, twisting and abstracted blankets and duvets that collage arms and hands reach out of. The bottom panel is painted with fleshy textures. Stacking mattresses create tight crevasses, between them from which the collage legs can emerge.