Working across the disciplines of sculpture, photography and interiors, Fiona Abicare presents her practice as a sequence of designed, performed and documented outcomes. Rather than using the gallery simply as a site to present her work, Abicare's intensely research-focused creative process has a historical relationship to the various iterations of the 'total artwork' found in modernist design. She conceives of space as an art object in itself: a complete environment filled with evocative visual props that highlight the importance and value of aesthetic considerations such as colour, form, shape, texture and material.
Abicare's practice seamlessly appropriates design methodology so that her projects integrate into site and cohere with assumptions of what an interior design outcome might look and feel like. She is most interested in transforming the traditional distinctions between art and design through her decisions, materials and methodologies, and pays specific attention to the material qualities of objects and how an audience might encounter their placement in space. Often collaborative in nature, her practice continues to be influenced by modernist art, design and architecture as well as by film and fashion.
The contexts that Fiona Abicare has worked within are plentiful: the Golden Age of Hollywood, the shabby chic aesthetic and objects of mass culture, just to name a few. Working with locations such as window shop fronts and gallery settings, the Melbourne-based artist’s work explores the cultural and personal associations and histories we have with various sites, objects and historical periods; creating works that blend art, design, architecture, film and fashion.
Tiarney Miekus, Art Guide podcast, March 2019.