Fiona Millais - Paths West

Fiona Millais graduated from University of Newcastle with a degree in Fine Art in 1984. Her work has been extensively exhibited at venues including Thompson’s Gallery and Thackeray Rankin Gallery in London and The Royal College of Art. In 2004 she was commissioned by the P&O Cruise Liner “Arcadia” to produce 8 large works including one painting which is 8 metres in length. Fiona is the great-granddaughter of the pre-Raphaelite painter Sir John Everett Millais.

"I have been developing the relationship between landscape and still life in my work. Sometimes the origins of the painting are clear, the subject delineated by a particular location of a collection of objects. In others the line between landscape and still life has become blurred and less obviously defined as one genre or another. One sometimes transforms itself into the other while I am painting, which tends to bring out the abstract nature of certain elements. The objects that I collect while out walking, such as feathers, stones and shells also help to bring the 'outside' into the studio. I find my spirits rising as soon as I start heading west and most of the paintings are from memories of the coasts and landscapes of Cornwall and some from the west of Scotland."