ARTIST’S STATEMENT
“Someone coloured my world today
Not sure it will be there tomorrow-
I hope it is!”
PF
How beautiful, magnificent and endlessly mysterious is the natural world! This body of work aims at raising awareness of what we have been given and engendering the commitment to care for it. I draw heavily on the sense of ‘listening’ to the earth in order to understand and encourage greater engagement.
The present urgency regarding climate change and the world’s need to do something about it has had a powerful effect on the direction of my work and my life choices. Consequently the first body of work happened in response to the urgency for action as the fires in Brazil raged last year. This was superseded by the extensive bushfires in Australia. What emerged from responding to these areas of concern was a desire to understand our connection, the ongoing interchange between all nature including us. This dialogue with the natural world is a continuous, unfolding awareness.
Abstraction allows me to respond to sound as well as visual images. Colour features strongly in the work and it is through colour that I feel able to truly express the joy I find in nature. All my work relies on my love of drawing and the natural instinctive use of language to express feelings and experience through poetry.
The second strand of enquiry revisits my long standing interest in ‘sound’. Throughout the course, this has been a fascination, linking sound with place and identity. The opportunity for collaboration with the Ethernet orchestra brought this interest to the fore and expanded it to include my study of migration, place and identity. The orchestra is comprised of musicians from six different countries, improvising music from across the oceans to express a sound of total unity, harmony and individuality. My paintings for the collaboration to produce images for a CD cover are about sound waves, sounds of the oceans and my response to the entirely unique sounds produced by the orchestra. The work explores ‘improvisation’ through abstraction and is an extension of previous work done in improvising through listening to birdsound and making the connection with memory.
CV and biographical statement
PATRICIA B FARRAR
Instagram: pbfarrar
Learning Log: www.patriciafarrar.co.uk
SUMMARY OF EXPERIENCE
PRESENT: Student OCA – BA Painting 2008 – 2020
Retired School Principal Sept 2008
Principal – Claremont Fan Court School Sept 1994 – Sept 2008
Claremont Fan Court School Sept 1983 – 1992
Returned to teaching when my youngest child was 7 years
1972 – 1983
Married
Inchbald School of Design
London Sept 1968 – 1969
Qualified as an Interior Designer
Teacher in Australia Jan 1960 – 1968
EDUCATION
Balmain Teachers’ College
Sydney, NSW
Australia 1958 – 1959
Graduated with Teachers’ Certificate
Sydney Girls’ High 1953 – 1957
Graduated with Leaving Certificate and Matriculation in English (A), French (A), History (A), Latin (B), Maths (B), Biology (B)
PERSONAL DATA
Nationality: Australian
Married with three children
Interests: Art, education, reading, poetry
BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT
I have had a lifetime interest in painting and drawing. My profession as a teacher, as school principal and raising a family did not allow for serious study of art but the love of the subject infiltrated everything I did. I always taught art to children and have been involved in numerous art projects during my teaching career. Creativity is not something that always follows a traditional pathway and I found that even as school principal, my 14 years administration became the means of creating on a different canvas.
Australia and the Australian landscape are embedded in my DNA and I find the colours, textures and bareness of my birth country remain a huge influence in the work, inherent in memory. Landscape can be experienced in the work but it is landscape in its widest sense where place, country, colours and the native environment merge into a personal space.
This interest in country has led to a deep concern about climate change and my work focuses on raising awareness of the need to commit. “We do not harm the thing we love” is a maxim that I base my work on, raising awareness of the amazing beauty of our world and its vulnerability. Putting my work before the public is a way of entering into the dialogue of why we all need to be part of the solution.
My work is heavily influenced by drawing which has always been my primary medium. Tonal values, the incredible instrument called a pencil and exploring the structure of objects, no matter how menial, to express their beauty have been elements of my interest in drawing and these have now been superseded by experimenting with drawing as a key element in painting.
- Awarded the Richard Robbins’ Award 2012 for artistic excellence – OCA
- Article ‘Meet the Artist’ in Surrey Life January 2-12
- Drawing and Paintings advertising courses at the OCA in Artists & Illustrators, September 2011, February 2015, May 2015,