FIONA BRETT born 16th May 1950 Glasgow

I am lucky enough to live in the wonderful community that is Jericho. People here take action in times of need. Even strangers have responded to the call for help initiated by my choir leader Stephanie Pirrie who saw my photography by chance. Her ideas and vision have given me the strength to participate in this exhibition. The intelligent and kind teenaged Joe Pirrie has taught himself how to scan the flood damaged negatives that had languished in a box since 2013. 

The involvement of the Jericho Living Heritage Trust is an honour for which we are immensely grateful. Though we are no longer able to host an exhibition in Frevds as originally planned, in this new virtual world I can still share my life’s work with you all and it means a lot to me. 

Terminal cancer is isolating with many people being shunned during a seemingly hopeless time. For me, being diagnosed January 2018 two days after participating in the joyous Jericho Singers New Year Concert was a relief to be believed. However from that day onwards it has been a treadmill of struggle enduring many operations and hateful chemotherapy. Despite constant pain and exhaustion. I  feel obliged at all times to cope, to appear normal and "battle cancer"  My 3c metastatic ovarian/peritoneal cancer is incurable. 

Knowing this from day one there can only be a point to this suffering if I can endure it to help and guide others. I am extremely grateful to everyone who has cared for me and I hope that you will give generously in support of my exhibition to show your appreciation. Every penny raised and every donation will be given directly to Fund-raising for The Cancer and Haematology Day Treatment Unit.

I have always been creative but knew I would find Art School pointless. Working as a Clerk to Counsel deluded me into attempting to become a Criminal Barrister. I passed Oxford Entrance but failed the interviews. "get back to your knitting" was actually said at a famous Oxford college!  Oxford Brookes University welcomed me but the toll of self funding and working in heavy cleaning jobs broke my health and cost me my place under time out rules. Then things went very downhill.

Misdiagnosed with "mental health issues" I endured no end of alienation, terrifying group therapy and poverty. It was actually primary hyperparathyroidism and a simple but scary operation rescued some of the damage.

In 1999 to cope with the aforementioned I converted to Catholicism as the ethos of the Oratory  is "of your charity" and started helping vulnerable older people and the dying. I attended free photography class. I was asked to leave for being disruptive and too artistically assertive!

Photography became my personal renaissance. I had to borrow cameras, buy film a roll a week and develop and print in a makeshift  darkroom in a bedsit. A relative of an old lady I was helping donated unwanted kit as he upgraded. I  worked very hard and I have been greatly supported by Artscape, Barchester Healthcare who funded my iMac, and I have received support and guidance from local legends Judie Waldmann and Paddy Summerfield.

I love photography and it seemed to come naturally to me. I have no truck with technical systems, F stops etc. and call my work "photographic art " because even if commissioned it has to be my vision, a purity of quest. I am fascinated by the juxtaposition of transience and permanence in photography. Monochrome, I feel, allows for greater fluidity of interpretation by both viewer and artist. I love architectural decay, portraiture but not studio work, funerary art, street photography and political and social commentary, still lifes. I very much admire the work of Doisneau, Ronis, Brassai, Scianna and Migliori but aspire to have my own style which embraces close cropping and details others might not use.

CHARITY

The Last Picture Show will include details of how to donate to Oxford Hospitals Charity Cancer and Haematology specifically the Day Treatment Unit as I have terminal cancer.

Past efforts: Oxford City Council and Oxford Poverty Action Trust (OxPAT) a temporary exhibition of 15 images of homeless people and I was chosen to take the then current campaign poster 2004.

The Big Issue requested one of my images for their archive.

December 2004 I was invited to donate some works for the Oxfam Sudan Appeal.

COMPETITIONS/COMMISSIONS/LOANS

Royal Photographic Society chose one of my images subsequently in Sobell House Hospice Oxford.

June 2005  5 portraits, one essay, one photomontage commissioned by Modern Art Oxford.

October 2005   2 separate pieces commissioned in 2 Synergy/Ithaca exhibitions in various Oxfordshire venues. 

Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Littlemore Hospital have permanent displays of my work and Artscape sent some items for a Personality Plus pop up show at Tate Modern 2007

ROK Builders and The Royal Oak  in Woodstock Road (Mitchells and Butlers) borrowed several of my pieces for a long time from 2005.

EXHIBITIONS

My debut exhibition REQUIEM October 2001 was well received and I was invited to stage further shows:

NOT BLACK TULIPS at the Yoga Garden/Cibo in Summertown Oxford 2002

ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING in the bar of The Phoenix Cinema, Jericho, Oxford  2002

HALFWAY TO PARADISE  (commissioned by Oxford City Council) at the X-Change Gallery, Oxford 2003

OXFORD at LINACRE COLLEGE  2003 a private commission not open to the general public, revised and retitled as GOT THE T SHIRT!, the exhibition moved to The Stables Gallery at Green College in 2004 for public viewing.

SEEKING PADDY'S ANGEL, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London 2005  ALSO at The Stables Gallery, Green College, Oxford 2005

EXTRAS commissioned by Modern Art Oxford as part of  their Dreams,Plans,Visions collection exhibition 2005

PARALLEL DIVERSITY  Artscape Gallery, Warneford Hospital 2008