Born 1983 in Glasgow, Scotland, Fiona Annis made an apprenticeship at the studio of Nadia Myre, Montréal, Quebec, Canada. Subsequently, she studied at the Concordia University of Montréal for her Bachelor Fine Arts. She continued her education at the Glasgow School of Art, United Kingdom and graduated with a Master of Research in Creative Art Practices. Then she returned to the Concordia University, acquired a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies in Society & Culture (studio arts, art history and philosophy) and was granted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
In her artistic practice, Fiona has a conceptual approach, in which she explores the nature of photography. She studies different kinds of effects of light and time on various support materials. Frequently starting from an abstract idea, she searches her expressions in diverse media. Forming chapters of long-term projects, the results could be very various, even though the point of departure was the same. Besides photography, the artist follows historic, literary and philosophic sources. Correspondingly, her oeuvre also includes text-based works, videos, installations, artist-books and even works in public space, namely in collaboration with “The Society of Affective Archives”, an artistic entity, co-founded by Fiona.
A central idea in her oeuvre is our cosmos with its celestial objects. This might be reflected in the depicted objects, which remind constellations of planets, galaxies and light reflexions. Moreover, the titles might refer to the stars. In general, Fiona questions about history, the present and possibilities for the future. At this, her proposals might not be directly visible, but be part of her artistic practice, the gesture during the creation.
Already during her studies, Fiona participated in many group exhibitions and had several solo exhibitions, mainly in Canada and Scotland. Later she increased her radius to the United States and Europe, notably to Italy. Moreover, her works were on view at international art fairs, fundraising exhibitions and participated in actions. Consequently, she is represented in several public and private collections and was often awarded. At the same time, she had numerous travel grants, inter alia the European Fine Art Travel Scholarship by the Brucebo Foundation in 2018 and a residency in Naples, where she worked on the collection of the MuSA – Museo degli Strumenti Astronomici di Capodimonte. Most recently, in May 2022, she had a solo exhibition at the Arte Fiera in Bologna. The Gallerie Riunite from Naples presented “It Slips and Falls and is Reborn”, which is the most recent chapter of her ongoing project “A Portion of That Which Was Once Everything”. Our artwork of the month of June 2022, the luminogram “De-siderare II” from 2021 was part of the show.
Fiona Annis lives and works in Montréal, Québec.