Francesca Hudson original art

Biography

Since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2000, Francesca has specialized in commissioned portraiture. Alongside this, her gallery artwork is based on a personal response to Britain’s group identity crisis.

 “The 1990s challenged us to take the final step and ‘chuck out that chintz’. We were urged toward a streamlined, functional life-style, free from frills and fancy.

 However, sitting at our flat pack table, waiting for our quorn-mince to defrost and worrying about our carbon footprint offers little comfort after our labours.

 Never fear! Our high street designers are here to save us, and we can now once more indulge our nostalgia in shops and bars offering ‘old’ leather sofas, ‘period’ wallpapers and dusty floral lampshades.

 With so many conflicting ideas of the future and the past influencing our group consciousness, it becomes very difficult to select from the shelves, a personal identity.

 As a painter, the images, patterns, objects which I select from infinite sources are, I suppose, an attempt to create a personal brand from the chaos.

Once the subjects, colours and materials have been selected and combined as reflective of this personal brand, the ultimate question is always, ‘Would I enjoy living with this object?’. The answer should always be, ‘Yes’.”