Glimpsing the Indefinable

Glimpsing the Indefinable’ brings together three women artists, Susannah Fiennes, Eugenie Vronskaya and Lucie Winterson, who’ve never exhibited together before. Each artist is connected to Nature not only through their abstracted depictions of settings and backgrounds, but practically too, as a place of escape from the distractions of city life. All three divide their lives between London and the country where they can more effectively channel thoughts and feelings into their paintings: Susannah in Wales and Oxford; Eugenie in Scotland and Lucie in Devon.

In our present era of uncertainty following the pandemic and the recent outbreak of war in Ukraine, many people have found solace in gardens, woodlands, fields and forests. It is widely-known that outdoor pursuits promote mental and physical well-being. Creatively, rural environments permit peace and solitude, which enable the artists to summon the rigour, total commitment and dreaming time needed to produce works of powerful intensity and mystery, qualities common to the output of all three. As the artist Gwen John once said: ‘One can only get to Heaven alone.’

Naturally, there are differences too. Eugenie and Susannah often include unidentifiable diaphanous figures in their compositions whereas Lucie’s paintings are devoid of any obvious sign of human life. Her work is concerned with ecology and reconfiguring our links to the vegetal, the world itself and the life force of trees and plants. Eugenia and Susannah may personally share some of these environmental concerns, but it is not a feature of their artwork. All three artists align in having a deep understanding of the non-verbal language inherent in their work. For each individually, creating a painting is a journey made up of memories and experiences, during which the past and present are distilled onto the canvas or board in an attempt to capture something ineffable.

Glimpsing the Indefinable is curated by Marie Ann Prior, Consultant/Adviser for Europe at Bank of America.