1. CotswoldArts
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Root and branch
Candia McKormack meets with Cotswold-based Arborealist, Fiona McIntyre
“The Buddha tried all kinds of things to
attain enlightenment… he starved himself
and nearly died, spent time in a dark cave
and spoke to the great mystics of the day, but
no-one could help him. In the end he came to
this amazing fig tree and sat under it for
many years, watching it changing and
evolving… He watched it coming into bud
and producing fruit, and supporting the
ecosystem around it… the ants, the bees and
other living creatures. And it was there he
found enlightenment. He couldn’t have
discovered it without the tree.”
Fiona McIntyre
A
rtist Fiona McIntyre is clearly
moved by the spirit of the tree;
approaching her studio near
South Cerney they stand as
guardians along the driveway. Then, on
entering the barn where she creates her
powerful work, you’re surrounded by lush,
green canopies in bold, visible strokes of oil
paint.
Originally from the Scottish Highlands
– her grandfather worked for the Argyll and
Bute Forestry Commission – she used to go
there on sketching trips while studying Art
at Edinburgh, and returns there now and
again still. She shows me one of the striking
large-scale charcoal sketches in her studio
of Tioram Castle, set on the Ardnamurchan
Peninsula. The sketch is soon to appear in
an exhibition in a church in Wales called
‘Capture the Castle’, curated by Tim Craven.
Ah, yes, the name Tim Craven is one that
is often associated with Fiona and her
work, for she is a member of a group of
artists who call themselves the
Arborealists, set up by Tim just a few years
ago. Tim – an artist himself, and curator of
art at Southampton – put on an exhibition
called ‘Under the Greenwood: Picturing the
British Tree - Constable to Kurt Jackson’
and it was shortly after this that the idea
for the Arborealists came abut.
Fiona’s great-grandfather was the
accomplished Camden Town Group painter
Malcolm Drummond, and it was her search
for his work and her roots that led to her
meeting Tim.
“I met Tim when I went down to
Southampton City Art Gallery specifically
to look at the Malcolm Drummond’s, as he
has the biggest collection of his work and
knows a lot about the Camden Town
Group… and the funny thing is, that’s what
got him into trees.”
Throughout British art history there have
always been reactions to things happening,
either within the art world itself or the
politics and technology of the world
around them; the Pre-Raphaelites sprang
from an atrophy of academic art in the
mid-19th century, and the Arts & Crafts
movement came out of a diss-ease with the
relentless march of the Industrial
Revolution.
Similarly, the Brotherhood of Ruralists
was a form of romanticism started in the
mid-’70s celebrating the English
countryside, with a ruralist being defined
by Tim Craven in his book ‘The Romantic
Thread’ as someone moving to the
countryside from the city. The seven
members who settled around Devizes and
Bath included, surprisingly, the godfather
of Pop Art, Peter Blake.
“If you trace it all the way to the present
day,” says Fiona, “we have come out of all
of those movements – from the
Brotherhood of Ruralists, etc, etc.”
Tim became particularly interested in
trees when he was inspired by an artist
called Charles Ginner, an artist who created
an abstraction out of the natural world
using a style that looks almost as if it’s
embroidered, such is the pattern-making
technique he employs.
“What’s interesting about our group,”
says Fiona, “is that there’s the common
theme of trees, but we all work very
differently to each other, which keeps
it fresh.”
Fiona describes herself as a colourist
and her work is also very painterly – you
can clearly see the brushstrokes in her
work – which is partly a result of her
Scottish training. From Scotland, she
moved to Sweden and trained under an
‘Imaginist’ printmaker, leading to her
doing very different work – much of it
nude studies – as well as developing an
interest in poetry, particularly the works
of Octavio Paz.
As Fiona shows me a series of powerful
live drawings from her time in Sweden, I
notice that all the figures seem to have
their faces obscured, and wonder the
reason for this.
“I think it was how I was feeling at the
time,” she says, “it was quite a difficult
experience moving to a different culture; I
had to learn Swedish and was married to an
Icelandic man who was speaking yet
another language.” [she is now happily
remarried to wine merchant Stephen
Maynard, with a ten-year-old daughter
called Zina].
“It was quite an isolating experience,”
she continues, “so I just threw myself into
my art and that helped to communicate
how I was feeling.” Fiona’s sheer
determination and the exceptional quality
of her work, though, led to her being
offered a place at the Grafikskolan Forum
– a school that is notoriously difficult to get
into and that only accepts dedicated,
professional artists.
At this time she also became interested
in the Nordic Expressionists.
“You’ve heard of the Nordic angst,” she
says. “Well, it really does exist, because the
long, dark winters genuinely do seem to go
on and on. Swedes do take a long time to
get to know, but once you do they will be
lifetime friends. They’re very honest
people, and I feel fortunate to have friends
like that.”
A big part of Fiona’s new book, ‘A Tree
Within’, is an interview with the respected
art historian Dr Alan Wilkinson – a
Canadian now living in Oxfordshire. He’s
hugely influential; from 1969-1974 he
worked closely with Henry Moore to select
for the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto – the
largest public collection of the sculptor’s
work – and has also met with the likes of
Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Harold
Pinter. He has written on ‘primitivism’ in
20th-century art and a number of
sculptors: Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso,
Brancusi. Modigliani, Lipchitz, Giacometti,
to name a few, and above all Henry Moore
and Barbara Hepworth. The cover of the
book features one of Fiona’s striking
paintings that came out of her spending
several months at Ampney Park sketching,
and also features other works including a
painting of an apple tree in a friend’s
garden in Meysey Hampton, and a cedar
tree on the drive to the cottage they live in
nearby.
Last year Fiona was part of an exhibition
called ‘Arboreal: Art of Trees’ at Bristol, as
part of the city’s year-long celebrations
being European Green Capital. The
exhibition comprised work by the
Arborealists – of which there are now
around 40 – and was carefully curated by
Tim. She explains about how Tim is keen to
keep the group of artists small, so as to stay
true to its original aim… and part of that is
a kind of spirituality that honours nature
and our place within it.
“Too much money corrupts people,” she
says. “I believe you can’t be a truly
enlightened being if you’re a multi-
millionaire… unless you were to do
something really amazing with that money
to help people. And this is why, of course,
the Buddha gave up his wealth – the penny
dropped that the only way to really
understand life was to walk away and
experience the real world.”
And spending time in this peaceful
corner of the Cotswolds, surrounded by
green leaves and reaching branches, it
makes perfect sense… there is much to be
learnt from the wisdom of trees. n
Fiona McIntyre’s book ‘A Tree Within’ showcases
35 years of her work, with over 100 illustrations,
and is published by Sansom & Company,
www.sansomandcompany.co.uk. £25, hardback.
The exhibition at Bishop’s Palace, Wells,
Somerset, runs from September 14 to October 31.
FionaMcIntyreinherCotswoldstudio
‘FionaMcIntyre: A Tree Within’, by Alan Wilkinson
PhotosbyCandiaMcKormack