Fyfe Daly

Artist Statement

Predominantly based in figuration, my work explores the relationship between people and spaces, studying the functions and aesthetics of rooms and how they are occupied and manipulated. I do this by depicting my own surroundings and social groups as paintings or constructed spaces using sculptural pieces to act as architecture, props and other figures. Within my art practice I identify and reference artists that address perception and human experiences like Pablo Picasso and George Braque, who depicted collapsing space in their cubist work, or surrealist artists like Joan Miro who used symbolism to address the unconscious.

This year I reflect on the pandemic by depicting my conflict and then acceptance of chaos. Within isolation, I was depicting domestic spaces without the figure. I focused on still life and pattern to emphasise a staging of order to the public while revealing an inner chaos through abstraction, using mark-making and broken perspectives. Then by reintroducing people and the figure into my life and practice, I recorded a positive chaos in people’s movement and complexity worth excepting through gestural mark making and vivid colour.