I’M always excited when I know I’m going to be seeing Frances Blane’s work. I never know what to expect. This time I’m looking at her new book FAB. which is published to accompany her upcoming shows in Belgium and London. The title intrigues me, why FAB?
I enquire. “I wanted something more upbeat.” she replies innocently. “It’s not a judgement on the work, FAB has been my nickname since art school. F, A and B are my initials.” Although the book has a positive title, the works here are shocking in boldness; casual slashes of paint and a feeling of violence pervade. Titles are low-key, Hospital, Mother, Edge etc. One voice of optimism and explanation comes from Susie Orbach, the esteemed therapist, writer and activist who provides fresh insight on Blane’s work. Orbach’s views on self, presentation and disguise are reinforced by a smiling and glossy photograph of Blane which conflicts with the images of heads in varying stages of disintegration. The book ends with an uncompromising portrait titled Split Head.
Frances Aviva Blane, Mother-oil-on-linen (244×183 cm)
Included in John Moores Painting Prize, 2018
Frances Aviva Blane, Sick head, Charcoal on khadi (30×30 cm)
Blane denies they are self-portraits but admits the short dark hair and red lips featured may have a similarity to her own. “No one wants to look how they feel do they? Stuff is hidden or disguised. I’d prefer to look like a winner.”
However she concedes that until she’d read Orbach’s article she’d not given the matter of photo shopping one’s image much thought or felt pressured to look a certain way. “When Susie looked at the work she said it felt similar to being in her consulting room, almost a visual equivalent.”
“Like the emotions engendered in the privacy of a psychoanalytic session, Frances Blane shows feelings, thoughts and screams: feelings, thought and screams that startle with rawness,” comments Orbach.
Frances Aviva Blane, Split head, Acrylic on khadi (42×30 cm)
The head drawings are unsettling largely because there’s no artifice. They are simple and spontaneous, almost scrappy. That is the strength. The power is in the sincerity. “It is her use of the paint or the charcoal, and the way the slashed eyes or the slanted mouth tell of fragmenting while holding within the boundary of the paper, that so impresses,” Orbach adds.
I understand from Blane this is the first time she’s put her figurative work alongside the abstract pieces in a publication “I want to see how the different genres relate and which have most impact. I prefer abstraction as it’s more mysterious.’
For me, the most interesting section of the book is the middle section enitled The Paint. This is a selection of close-up images of the work in which one can almost smell the oil paint. I marvel at the contrast in medium; viscosity versus watery, clumps of paint versus transparent rivers. It looks so easy, the control.
Frances Aviva Blane, Untitled, Oil-on-linen (36×46 cm)
Blane says candidly, “It’s the paint I’m interested in, what it can do, not representation or finding a likeness.”
Why then do you paint heads? I ask. “It’s an entry into the more obscure non-referential work, it helps me sort out my ideas,” Blane replies.
by Jane Weston
Blane will be showing these works next year at De Queeste Art Gallery in Belgium and
Zuleika Gallery London SW1.
FAB. published by Starmount Publishing. Available from Amazon