A MOTHER'S MANUAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN LOVING MEMORY OF ARTIST HILARY DUNNE

 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

Award-winning artist Hilary Dunne was born in Northamptonshire in England and has lived most of her life in or near to London. She has travelled extensively, particularly in Ethiopia where she has family connections, and in other parts of Africa, as well as in India, Latin America and the Caribbean. All of this has had a great influence on her life and painting.

Although always seriously interested in drawing and painting, when she left school, Hilary went on to study law at Nottingham University and in London. She practiced law in London, both as a partner in a large City practice and in a major financial institution, but eventually decided to move away from the law to enable herself to have more time to devote to painting. Largely self-taught as an artist, Hilary attended part time courses at Heatherleys and Central Saint Martins' Schools of Art in London to give herself a small part of the basic grounding she would have had from a fine art training. She has also studied mosaic in Ravenna, Italy, and at the Hampstead School of Art and the City Lit in London.

She is a figurative artist, working in oils and using gold and other leafs to illuminate her work.  She is passionate about colour and is influenced by the 15th century Italian artists such as Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi as well as 19th century Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt. She loves the icon used in the Christian religion and takes inspiration from its' mystery, colour and gold.

She first exhibited in the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1998 and has continued to exhibit widely - in London’s' prestigious Mall Galleries on a number of occasions, across the UK and also at places as far flung as Osaka, Japan, Kimberly, Wisconsin and Austin, Texas.

Of her work she says that some simply reflects a vivid memory from a moment in time on her travels whilst other looks behind the human mask at the many layers that lie beneath.  She looks particularly at the nature of duality: life and death, male and female, ego and alter ego, dark and light and the parallel and spirit worlds about which some cultures turn.

Hilary’s work has been used in television and theatre sets including the BBC2 television serial "Attachments", "Master Chef", again for BBC2 and in Nippon, Japan television’s London program. In November 2014 Hilary was awarded the prestigious Meynell Fenton Prize at the ING Discerning Eye Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London. Hilary has now move to a small village near to the historic town of Stamford where she works in an artistic community. 

Hilary Alison Dunne passed away October 30, 2020

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