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Frances Kiernan is an artist/printmaker based in London. Language, rhythm and landscape has influenced the work she makes and continues to be a critical area of research. The traces we leave behind and the history of patterns they create often becomes her starting point.
Man’s effect on landscape and the effect that landscape has on man led her to look at the work of poet John Clare who documented the effect of place and people when the enclosure acts granted local landowners permission to fence the open fields. In her series of prints ‘Where We Once Walked’ she used separate plates to represent the division of land and linked them with a blind embossed thread to acknowledge the time when people worked and walked freely on what was once common land. More recently Frances explored ideas around the code breaking of writing systems, such as cuneiform. Layers of a placeholder Latin text were used in her etchings to produce a language of textured surfaces. Thread and cloth have long been an integral part of her printmaking practice and in a new series of prints she introduces weaving to her work with text and mark making still at its centre.
Instagram @frances_kiernan
Education
Wimbledon School of Art 2002 MA Fine Art : print
Ealing School of Art 1965-68 Design and Typography
Collections
Victoria & Albert Museum Print Archive
Victoria & Albert Museum Words & Image Archive
Kensington and Kew Palaces
Sanskriti Foundation, New Delhi
Publications
The Flood: extract from Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis, Mulfran Miniatures (2017)
Pushing Boundaries, Printmakers Council (2016)
Making an Impression, Printmakers Council at 50 (2015)
Aria : A collection of poetry and translations by Sudeep Sen (UK version 2011 / Indian version 2009)
Intaglio : the complete safety-first system for creative printmaking by Robert Adam and Carol Robertson, Thames and Hudson (2007)
Residency
Sanskriti Kendra Foundation, New Delhi : 2010
Memberships
Printmakers Council
Richmond Printmakers
Wednesday Printmakers
Frances Kiernan is an artist/printmaker based in London. Language, rhythm and landscape has influenced the work she makes and continues to be a critical area of research. The traces we leave behind and the history of patterns they create often becomes her starting point.
Man’s effect on landscape and the effect that landscape has on man led her to look at the work of poet John Clare who documented the effect of place and people when the enclosure acts granted local landowners permission to fence the open fields. In her series of prints ‘Where We Once Walked’ she used separate plates to represent the division of land and linked them with a blind embossed thread to acknowledge the time when people worked and walked freely on what was once common land. More recently Frances explored ideas around the code breaking of writing systems, such as cuneiform. Layers of a placeholder Latin text were used in her etchings to produce a language of textured surfaces. Thread and cloth have long been an integral part of her printmaking practice and in a new series of prints she introduces weaving to her work with text and mark making still at its centre.
Instagram @frances_kiernan
Education
Wimbledon School of Art 2002 MA Fine Art : print
Ealing School of Art 1965-68 Design and Typography
Collections
Victoria & Albert Museum Print Archive
Victoria & Albert Museum Words & Image Archive
Kensington and Kew Palaces
Sanskriti Foundation, New Delhi
Publications
The Flood: extract from Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis, Mulfran Miniatures (2017)
Pushing Boundaries, Printmakers Council (2016)
Making an Impression, Printmakers Council at 50 (2015)
Aria : A collection of poetry and translations by Sudeep Sen (UK version 2011 / Indian version 2009)
Intaglio : the complete safety-first system for creative printmaking by Robert Adam and Carol Robertson, Thames and Hudson (2007)
Residency
Sanskriti Kendra Foundation, New Delhi : 2010
Memberships
Printmakers Council
Richmond Printmakers
Wednesday Printmakers