Interview with Crystal Fischetti

06/02/21
Interview with Crystal Fischetti 

Crystal Fischetti: Hello Again!
Grove Square Galleries, London
11 February – 9 April 2021
 
Besides being an artist, Crystal Fischetti (b1984, London, UK) is also an empath, psychic and shaman. For her forthcoming solo exhibition Hello Again!, she is bringing all aspects of herself together, creating “a beautiful marriage”. The 36 works on display – this number was chosen because it was her age when creating them, and Fischetti believes deeply in the power of numerology – are vibrant and pulsating, each one representing a visual journey, but also a return to self. The use of unprimed canvases goes back to the artists of the New York School, to whom she is often compared in style, and their elements of play, as well as of mysticism, and her use of bedsheets uncovers what it means to be at home, representing physical intimacy, rest and repose, lucid dreaming, and also a connection to the astral realm and the unconscious. 
 

Fischetti, who is of mixed British, Italian and Colombian heritage, trained as a dancer before turning to visual art, and she still uses her whole body to paint – often incorporating hand- and footprints in her works – and she hopes, in the future, to create more performative, live-painting pieces. 
 
I spoke to Fischetti for Studio International via Zoom about her calling by Spirit to be of service, how the pandemic has influenced her work, and the simple process of creating alchemy out of the things you have around you.

 
Watch the full interview here

Interview with Matthew Burrows

18/06/20
Interview with Matthew Burrows

Matthew Burrows (b1971, the Wirral) is a painter through and through, even though his strategies for approaching his work include numerous analogies to try to free himself from the weight of art history. His canvases are built up with thin layers of paint, creating the effect of a textured piece, woven in and out, much like a basket. He likes to think of the horizontals and verticals as a play between a structure that is given and a process that is open.

Burrows is also the artist behind the enormously successful #ArtistSupportPledge, a simple idea, launched on Instagram just before lockdown in the UK, and now a worldwide phenomenon, earning many artists more than ever before, and proving to be self-sustaining for the community. Using the hashtag #ArtistSupportPledge, artists and makers post works for sale on social media, which must be £200 or under, with the implicit promise that, once they have sold £1,000 worth, they will buy a work by someone else, thus feeding back into the economy, creating a form of subsistence culture.

Burrows studied as an undergraduate at Birmingham School of Art (1990-93) and graduated with a master’s degree in painting from the Royal College of Art in 1995. He lives and works in East Sussex, where the landscape, and his endurance runs through it, form an integral part of his practice. 

Burrows spoke to me for Studio International about how the pledge came about, his hopes and plans for its future, his thinking about his practice, and how he hopes to return to being a full-time artist very soon.

Read the full interview here