Frances Kiernan

franceskiernan.co.uk

Frances was born in 1946 and brought up in Paddington, but with proud Irish roots.

She trained as a graphic designer at Ealing School of Art (1965-8), and had a highly successful and varied career as a designer and art director/editor in the design and publishing industries. In 2002 Frances gained an MA in Fine Art Printmaking from Wimbledon School of Art (2002) and from then on concentrated on her printmaking practice, becoming a skillful and talented typographer and designer, printmaker and book artist who taught, developed and delivered community and outreach arts projects. She held book-making and print workshops, organized and took part in a multitude of exhibitions, produced books, pamphlets, cards and leaflets for sale, and collaborated on several projects with poet and lifelong friend Jenny Lewis.

Frances was a truly valued member of the Printmakers Council, Wednesday Printmakers and Richmond Printmakers, designing for, and exhibiting with them many times.

Her work is held in the following Collections

Victoria & Albert Museum Print Archive; Victoria & Albert Museum Words & Image Archive, Kensington and Kew Palaces Sanskriti Foundation, New Delhi

And her Publications include
The Flood: extract from Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis, Mulfran Miniatures (2017)
Pushing Boundaries, Printmakers Council (2016)

Making an Impression, Printmakers Council at 50 (2015)

Aria : A collection of poetry and translations by Sudeep Sen (UK version 2011 / Indian version 2009)

Intaglio : the complete safety-first system for creative printmaking by Robert Adam and Carol Robertson, Thames and Hudson (2007).

The Inspiration behind her work

Language, rhythm and landscape influenced the work Frances made. As did her background as a graphic designer. The traces we leave behind and the history of patterns they create often became her starting point. Man’s effect on landscape and the effect that landscape has on man led her to look at the work of poet John Clare.  The poet documented the impact of the enclosure acts on places and people when local landowners were granted permission to fence the open fields.

In her series of prints ‘Where We Once Walked’ she used separate plates to represent the division of land and linked them with a blind embossed thread to acknowledge the time when people worked and walked freely on what was once common land. A visit to the Yuanyang rice fields of China where Hani farmers have terraced the hillsides for over 1300 years, provided another huge source of inspiration. The terracing has created strong rhythmic patterns which have transformed the landscape into a visual delight.

Frances also explored ideas around the code breaking of writing systems, such as cuneiform. Inspired by the story of Gilgamesh, she used layers of a placeholder Latin text in her etchings to produce a language of textured surfaces which concealed and revealed fragments from Gilgamesh Retold.

Thread and cloth were also an integral part of her printmaking practice, and latterly, she introduced weaving into her work, cutting and weaving together her original prints. As always, text, mark making and pattern remained at the centre of her refined and subtle work.

View all Artists