ISOBEL FINLAY
Isobel Finlay was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire and grew up in the countryside - having lived and worked in London since 2016. Her work is currently on display at Curious Kudu as part of the exhibition ‘Iterations of Line’.
5 Questions with Isobel FInlay
What does your art mean to you?
My practice means a lot to me, it is a way for me to feel more in touch with reality and my surroundings through play and exploration of materials. I find that in my day-to-day life I can feel disconnected from others, from physical objects, from history, from the planet, and making artwork helps me to feel connected again.
Perhaps that is partly due to the tactile nature of my practice, but I think it is also due to the creative approach to art making that opens up new avenues of connection in daily life.
Does perfection exist?
I don’t think perfection can ever exist, and if I’m honest perfection is not something I have been working towards. In the past, I would become blinkered to the outside world in pursuit of perfection, but now, especially in my creative practice, I am much more interested in the mistakes and unexpected outcomes that happen. If an artwork ends up looking exactly the way I thought it would when I started, something has gone wrong!
What’s your favourite place, and why?
My favourite place changes all the time, but currently, it is a tie between the fields near my parent’s house in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and Albert Bridge when you cross it at night time.
One thing that inspires you?
Clothing and the history of fabric production is something that inspires me, I find the connection between the body and clothing endlessly fascinating - the boundary between clothing and skin, how fabric can take on organic, animate traits, how the production of fabric was moulded around survival as well as self-expression. So much is held within the stitches.
Is making art a privilege?
Making art is most certainly a privilege. It costs so much time and effort to continue to make art, to work full time during the week and try to carve out moments to continue to explore ideas and research can be so difficult but I always return to it.
I don’t have to make art at all, there is no requirement, but I simply love doing it. Even when I take a break from making work, I know I will always come back to it.
"My inspiration comes from multiple sources, but mainly the materials I use and the history that they hold. I use a lot of textiles within my work and I find that the relationship to the body that textile have incredibly interesting, as they can be seen as an extension of the body, an expression of skin almost. Fabric also has a varied, ancient history with fabric production being developed within households and on a bodily scale."
"Within my drawings too there is a connection to movement and material exploration. I use a lot of watercolours and soft pastels, both of which, I believe, contain a lot of potential fluid movement within the material, especially watercolours. Both are hard to control, but if the aim is not to control them and allow them to make a few decisions of their own, the exploration of the material can become a very interesting union of ideas. Hand and material collaborating rather than dominating."