Moyna Flannigan


Moyna Flannigan is a Scottish artist working primarily in drawing, collage and painting.
Flannigan is best known for her imagined paintings of women in psychologically charged situations. "The real subject of my paintings is space, both physical and psychological. Space in a painting is not simply an environment for action; it’s a place with formal relationships that have inherent hidden meaning."

Education and teaching

Flannigan was born in Kirkcaldy in 1963. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Edinburgh College of Art in 1985 and a Master of Fine Art from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut in 1987. Formerly a lecturer in painting at Glasgow School of Art, Flannigan was a teaching fellow at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh.

Influences

The Glasgow Herald in 2014, at the time of her Generations show, Flannigan discussed drawing inspiration from the work of surrealist sculptor Alberto Giacometti. His work Femme égorgée "fed its way into her subconscious". She has also drawn inspiration from the 1979 art film, Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, and from Masaccio's masterly 15th-century fresco, Expulsion From The Garden Of Eden in the Brancacci Chapel, Florence, which she visited as part of her residency in Rome.
While Giacometti's 1932 bronze, is "a worrying human-insect hybrid, a splayed, disembowelled figure part praying mantis, part crime victim, Flannigan turns up the volume of Giacometti's angst-ridden attitude to the female form; her own painted figures echo his sculpture's splayed structure, but are defiantly, terrifyingly alive with their blood red lips and stiletto heels".

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

2007 Crichton Stuart, Anthony. Moyna Flannigan: An Intervention at Mount Stuart, Mount Stuart Visual Arts Programme, Isle of Bute
2006 Dannatt, Adrian. Moyna Flannigan Paintings 1998-2006. Edinburgh. Doggerfisher
2006 Clark, Robert. "Moyna Flannigan, Edinburgh." The Guardian, August 19: 36
2005 Monaghan, Helen. "New York, Moyna Flannigan, Sara Meltzer Gallery 7 Apr - 14 May, MAP, Issue 2/Summer 2005
2004 Lapham, Lewis. "Moyna Flannigan", Harper's Magazine, November, p. 23
2004 Boyce, Martin. "Moyna Flannigan" Scotland on Sunday, Critics' Choice, May 9
2004 Hartley, Keith. "Once upon our time: Portrait Miniatures by Moyna Flannigan", The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
2003 Herbert, Martin. "Moyna Flannigan", Frieze Art Fair Yearbook 2003, London
2003 Chambers, Christopher. "Moyna Flannigan," FlashArt, July–September, p. 67
2002 Mulholland, Neil. "Moyna Flannigan," FlashArt, November–December
2001Tufnell, Rob and Katrina M. Brown, Here and Now: Scottish Art 1990-2001, DCA, Dundee
2001 Nicod, Caroline, et al. Open Country - Scotland: Contemporary Scottish Artists, Musee cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, Switzerland
2001 Hartley, Keith. Locale, City Art Centre, Edinburgh
1999 Marlow, Tim. The NatWest Art Prize 1999, Lothbury Gallery, London
1997 Mania, Patrizia. Fine Art Scholars 1997, British Art School at Rome
1996 Kingston, Angela. Moyna Flannigan, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow