Purdey Fitzherbert
Purdey Fitzherbert (born 18 September 1987) is a contemporary British painter living and working in the UK.
Fitzherbert is an emerging artist who creates works which investigate perception and explore the physical and psychological aspects of seeing. She has been gaining recognition in the contemporary art scene because of the way her work oscillates between documentation and abstraction, provoking a perceptual experience in the viewer that is connected to the experience Fitzherbert had during creation.
Life and Work
Purdey Fitzherbert did her foundation studies at Wimbledon College of Art before completing a four-year degree in Fine Art and graduating with first class honours from Newcastle University. Fitzherbert complimented her Fine Art studies with private tutorials with senior Psychology lecturer, Dr. Gabriele Jordan, in order to learn the science behind the theory of how humans see and experience colour.
Career
Art
Fitzherbert attempts to record the temporality of colour and light in large, mixed media works, as seen in her current body of work, Light Series. The role that the environment has to play in the perception of Fitzherbert’s works makes them closer to installations rather than paintings, as her works require action and interaction in order to truly bring them to life. Each viewer sees different colours, patterns, and textures depending on where they stand or what kind of light her work is exhibited in, and it is this individuality in perception that Fitzherbert finds so intriguing, and it is also what makes her works so unique. Fitzherbert uses a visual language of form, colour, and line in her works, whilst being very conscious of never treading on the decorative.[1]
My work has become an investigation into perception, specifically what one sees, and how one experiences the act of seeing. I have been recording colour and light, and their fleeting playfulness. I am intrigued by the way they can appear but also dissolve from our vision. Light and colour are central to my work, but journey and silence have always been the fundamental starting points…I sometimes experience an instant of acute beauty during which something (ordinarily hidden) is briefly illuminated. This sublime glimmer of colour or light is fleeting, unlikely to be seen or experienced again. I am attempting to document light’s ephemeral nature, noticing subtle colours, which impregnate both our true vision and that of the outside world. By observing and experiencing existence so intently, it becomes hard to look past light’s trickeries, its transient and weightless nature...I want my work to be experienced rather than read, and I like to play with ideas that almost don't exist in physical reality.— Purdey Fitzherbert, 2011
Fitzherbert categorizes herself mainly as an abstract painter, but also claims influences from Conceptual art movements, Op art, Minimalism, Impressionism, and Light art. Fitzherbert also lists abstract minimalist, Agnes Martin as an artist for whom she has a great admiration and respect.[2]
Exhibitions and Collections
Purdey Fitzherbert has been most recently exhibited at SEM-ART Gallery, Monaco (2011),[3] and with Hus Gallery, Gstaad (2012).[4]
Representation
Purdey Fitzherbert is represented exclusively by Hus Gallery.