Series

There Are Rabbits in This House

“There Are Rabbits in This House” is a series of colored pencil drawings depicting brightly hued rabbits existing playfully in abstracted spaces of comfort. Inspired by the artist's love for her own rabbit - a five pound, three-legged, banana loving, tilty-headed girl named Juno - these pieces serve as windows into a home filled with rabbits who are safe and well cared for. In constructing this place of protection, the artist rejects trope-y and harmful depictions of domestic rabbits as barn animals or products to be sold for their meat, fur, or use as test subjects. Her pieces serve as an exploration into the individuality expressed by these nonhuman animals, and as a testament to the ways in which our relationships with those of other species can change our perspectives on the world.

This project was made possible in part by the House Rabbit Society in Richmond, who brought Juno to this artist in the first place, and whose rabbit residents are the models for all of these drawings.

The Watcher and the Dreamer

Torn between the dilemma of watching and dreaming, these works explore the modern struggle that many of us face as we watch (or don’t) the world upheave itself through our phones. Using vivid colors, these diptych paintings depict two contradicting feelings of hopeless empathy as one watches the suffering of our planet while not believing that they are able to take tangible action, versus slipping into willful ignorance and covering one’s eyes to whatever dangers will come our way. In reflecting on her personal experience of depression during lockdown in combination with a current sense of helplessness as tragedy unfolds across the world, Fiona’s paintings conjure the feeling of exhaustion that comes with the constant interconnectedness of the world. She imagines a landscape of destruction and chaos entwined with human forms whose bodies serve as the playground for her visions of suffering. Fiona’s work invites us to consider what choice we will make between witnessing and sleeping. Can we learn to bear the pain of empathy? Or will we choose the quiet death of the apathetic?