Fatima Fletcher

Fatima Fletcher (Spain)

Title: The Linen Princess
Medium: Acrylic paint and paste bling on linen and mp3 sound file
Size: 21 x 29cm
Price: 250 euros

Titlede ‘The Linen Princess’ this work is in 2 complementary parts – an oval portrait of the Princess on linen and a sound file of her reading excerpts from her father’s recently published autobiography ‘A Ramble’ by Harry Stevenson. Her father was called ‘The Linen Prince’ by the Dungannon Observer in N Ireland for his work in building up, restoring and modernising the linen industry and she tells the tale of linen in ‘The Linen Triangle’ of N Ireland from Elizabethan times until 1945. From household linens to military straps to tropical suits linen has had a place and this artwork is a celebration of it.

My art is a time thing, merging past, present and imagining what is to come. I currently work mostly on paper with ink and acrylic paint using as my starting point paintings by Goya, Velasquez and Gainsborough – revisiting them with a modern twist/story. A lot of the work I do is on B1 size Fabriano paper 100 x 70 cm which I also release as print editions. My background is in performance and video so sometimes I make forays there.
Most of my recent work is portraiture and I use friends and family as models changing them into vomiting mermaids, or masked Lords and Ladies, or themselves enacting a story about their lives, or in my latest project holding a weapon of choice as they attempt to walk home safely.
The Linen princess is a friend in London and it has been a delight to work with her and be able to use parts of her father’s story for this project.
I am from London in the UK and currently based in Salinetas, Gran Canaria. I am researching and planning some future non-portrait work based upon the rugged and unforgiving volcanic landscape here that is relentlessly bashed by the Atlantic ocean – the skyline being punctuated by wind turbines and the rocks by lizards.

LINK to ‘The Linen Princess’ sound file HERE