Frances Bloomfield is an artist living and working in Brighton. Following the completion of her degree in Fine Art from Ravensbourne College of Art she exhibited with several galleries including Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, Art Net, London and also at Documenta VI in Kassel as a guest of Joseph Beuys. Bloomfield was a senior lecturer in graphic design for several years at The Cass School of Art & Design and the University of the Arts in London.
During the last 6 years Frances Bloomfield has created a significant body of work, which she has exhibited widely. Her work has been selected for curated Brighton Festival exhibitions at the Brighton Dome and for the 2011 London Group Open Exhibition. Her work was also selected for East Sussex Open 2013 held at The Towner Gallery and in 2015 she was chosen for the Aesthetica Art Prize longlist. She is currently represented by Liberty Gallery for international and UK art fairs, Byard Art (Cambridge) and Objet Trouvé (Alfriston). She regularly exhibits in Brighton during the Brighton Festival each May and on other occasions. Alongside this she has worked with her partner, Pete Fraser, on several design projects with a range of clients, recently these include commissions in 2015/ 2016/2017 to collaborate with CountryLab, Turin, on the design of the exhibition stands for Gebruder Thonet Vienna at the Salone del Mobile in Milan.
Her work can best be described as a series of fascinating dreamscapes exquisitely created in three-dimensional collage. Each piece is like a small theatre set which plays with space and perspective to draw the viewer into the curious worlds she creates. The subject matter is drawn from the domestic, the industrial and the natural worlds but there are recurrent themes throughout her body of work. Notably there is always a suggestion of parallel realities – it might be a juxtaposition of what is considered ‘real’ and what is imagined or desired or the conflict between the façade and what could really be occurring behind it. However the meanings are not prescriptive and it is for the viewer to contemplate and reflect upon these mysterious scenarios.
Inspiration for the work comes from an eclectic range of sources: industrial ruins, the back streets of several European cities, geometry and wiring diagrams, maps and plans, detritus from the seashore, unusual found objects and various texts most notably writing from R.D.Laing, Gaston Bachelard and Italo Calvino.
This quote from Paul Auster’s novel – Man in the Dark (2008) clearly expresses the main concerns of the work:
“There’s no single reality...there are many realities. There’s no single world. There are many worlds, and they all run parallel to one another, worlds and anti-worlds, worlds and shadow-worlds, and each world is dreamed or imagined or written by someone in another world. Each world is the creation of a mind.”
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS, COMMISSIONS AND AWARDS
April 2023
Farley’s Gallery Chiddingly
Solo Show
March 2023
Byard Art Cambridge
The Story of Art - Group Show
April 2022
Byard Art Cambridge
Home & Garden - Group Show
May 2021
Byard Art Cambridge
New works by Alison Pullen & Frances Bloomfield
February 2020
Byard Art Cambridge
Workd of Interiors- Group Show
2013/2014/2015/2016/2017/2018/2019/2020/2021/2022/2023
Liberty Gallery - Affordable Art Fairs
Battersea/Stockholm/Hampstead/Brussels/New York
2014/2015/2016
Liberty Gallery - London Art Fair
From October 2012
Saffron Gallery Battle & East Grinstead
May 2017
Lingwood Samuel Gallery Godalming
An Interior Perspective
May 2017
Gallery 57 Arundel
Interior Space
March 2014
Byard Art Cambridge
Once upon a book - Group Show
December 2016
Byard Art Cambridge
Christmas Show
April 2015/2016/2017
Salone del Mobile Milan
Gebruder Thonet Vienna Commission
March 2015
Aesthetica Art Prize
Longlist 2015
July 2015
Orso Major London
Static Motion
November/December 2014
Medici Gallery London
Contemporary Sculpture and Christmas Show
December 2013
Clifton Fine Art Bristol
Group Show
May 2013
Bath Fringe Festival
In Other Words
April 2013/2014/2015
Liberty Gallery - International Art Fair 20/21
March 2013
Towner Gallery East Sussex
Open 2013
December 2012
The Searchers Contemporary Gallery Bristol
Surface disturbances-evidence of biological time-part 2
December 2012
Mile End Art Pavilion London
The End of the World - Project 2012
August 2012
Naked Eye Gallery Brighton
Group Show
August 2012
no format gallery London
Out of the Box 2
Summer 2012
Rye Art Gallery
Group Summer Show
May 2012
Brighton Dome
Selected work for the House Open Exhibition
April 2012
The Stone Space London
Inclusions - Group show
January 2012
Trinity Gallery Tunbridge Wells
Solo Show
November 2011
Cello Factory
The London Group Open Exhibition
May 2009
Regency Town House Brighton
Selected work for the House Open Exhibition
2008/9
Ebbw Vale Town Clock - regeneration project
Typographic commission