Accession Code: WU0915 Title: Simply Carry This Map to Travel Through Time Date completed: 2008 Classification: Painting Medium: Oil, acrylic and gouache on canvas Height (mm): 1524 Width (mm): 1270 Depth (mm): Inscription: Location Name: Warwick Arts Centre Location Description: Outside Music Centre Location Floor: 0

Work: © Fiona Rae
Photograph: Antony Makinson / Prudence Cuming Assoc.

Sticking faithfully to painting throughout her career, Rae pushes the boundaries of the medium in her practice incorporating a wide range of techniques. In this work we have areas of thick impasto jostling for position with other motifs: seemingly endless even brush strokes which loop across the canvas; lines of dots; completely smooth areas of poured paint; thick, bright, multicoloured sweeping strokes and tiny hairs-breadth painted fissures.

Whilst painting has in recent times become regarded by many as an unfashionable and outdated medium, Rae’s practice is right up to date. Her starting point is a computer, which she uses to plan the foundations of the painting, allowing her to consider different shades in a quick and easy fashion. From this point on everything is hand done and time is taken to achieve the right results. Paints can take several hours to mix and each mark once placed is carefully considered before moving on to the next. She is particularly interested in the discourse between low and high culture and she achieves this by the introduction of mass-produced, off the peg elements, in this case toy bears and rabbits.

To see Fiona Rae at work BBC Learning Clip - Fiona RaeLink opens in a new window TateShot - Fiona RaeLink opens in a new window