Fi Brown

Fi Brown sees her artwork as close to Imagist poetry or ‘visual haiku’ in that she begins with small everyday encounters with places, people, objects or materials, and layers of meaning extend from these.

She is interested in how which a quick event, gesture or observation in the moment, such as the meeting of two coloured liquids, or a sensory experience, can be transcribed and reinterpreted through a slow and deliberate process such as Japanese woodblock carving and printing.

She combines defined shapes, territories, boundaries, and borders with accidental, fluid, and instinctive elements. This is often expressed through calligraphic brush marks, processes, and the use of materials that both protect and resist such as wax, oil, felt and water. The stories, associations and properties of materials sometimes lead the work.

Recently she has been making prints, drawings, paintings and collages influenced by coastal light, staircases and thresholds, poetry, geological maps and wheelbarrows, amongst other things.

Earlier in 2024 she traveled to Japan to spend time exploring woodblock printing and is excited by the potential of this unique and beautiful printmaking practice for her work.

She grew up in Holmfirth on the edge of The Pennines and studied Fine Art in Liverpool and Public Art at Chelsea School of Art.
She worked in Public Art and Education for many years in different contexts.
Her work has been selected for local and national exhibitions including Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, Ty Pawb International Print exhibition, Wells Contemporary and Royal West of England Academy.
She now lives and works in Hastings.