Gwenyth Fugard is a London based artist originally from New Zealand. She graduated from Central St Martins with a BA FA and completed her MA FA at City & Guilds.
Her practice attends to the importance of material and process, as each painting operates as a self-contained world, exposing the evolution of their making. The works are non- representational, she does not proceed with the intention of abstracting from the outside world. Fugard is interested in developing each painting with the notion of the work being about itself and of itself. Emphasing construction, not merely the painting of the painting, through assemblage of textile, and a process of folding, stitching, tearing and building an additional skin. Oscillating between excess and restraint, hesitancy and assertion, privacy and disclosure, the paint is pressed into canvas, linen, organza and scrim.
Fugard exposes the mechanics of painting during the construction and deconstruction of the painting, allowing incidents to occur resulting in the surface becoming a landscape of decisions upon which she navigates.
Imposing difference and contrast to sit side by side, as if a duality of forces are at play. This duality is often staged through presenting a vertical division, as she investigates how little or how excessive her application can be for the work to become a painting.
The periphery and supporting structure is emphasised by exposing more detail. Part air and partly grounded, the works proceed as she adds and removes paint and textile until the painting finds its own internal logic, its own truth and resting place.
She has won awards but most prominently the 'Tony Carter Award' for materiality, 2017. Her paintings are held internationally in private collections.