A painting practice inspired by unpredictable weather, coastal mountainsides, and temperate rainforests
Lisa Fenton O’Brien lives in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, where her work focuses on the unpredictable weather, coastal mountainsides, and nearby temperate rainforests. Her practice has included sound and video installations and performance pieces exploring remoteness. She is currently working primarily in water-based media on paper and canvas. Working outside for varying lengths of time, she strives to capture the elements within her pieces, using the direction and density of the rain to dictate her mark-making. This allows her to capture specific moments and the indexical quality of this changeable climate.
Fenton O’Brien received her Master’s in Fine Art from Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, and has exhibited widely throughout Scotland. She is a member of the Society of Scottish Artists, Visual Arts Scotland, a professional member of AXIS, and her work was recently selected for the Royal Society of Scottish Watercolour Painters' Annual Open Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in 2024.
The works below were made in the Spring of 2024 in response to wetter-than-usual conditions in the Highlands. Working outside with the rain, rather than waiting for dry days, the artist explored at length, allowing the rainfall to dictate the work. She experimented with different 'exposures' (leaving the paper for differing durations) and variable conditions (in heavy rain, storms, and lightsprinkles). The results were then reworked in the studio and developed into a series that evokes the elements and species of plants and animals the artist encountered in the field (namely jellyfish and sphagnum moss).
