It’s a dog’s life for Fiona’s art

Alford artist Fiona Thomson has been putting the finishing touches to her end-of-year exhibition ready for the Gray's School of Art Masters Degree Show 2010.

Fiona has been studying part-time at Robert Gordon University's 125-year-old art school for the past two years and is set to graduate with a Masters of Fine Art in December.

Her exhibition, which comprises a series of drawings and paintings, features her two Italian Greyhounds - Zoomie and Lottie. The small and graceful Italian Greyhound is named for it's prevalence in Renaissance art and popularity in Italy around the 15th-17th centuries.

Fiona has studied the movement and characteristics of her own pets in order to create contemporary art featuring the breed.

Fiona explains: "Rather than creating portrait paintings - which were the style in the Renaissance period - I have captured spontaneous images of my dogs in oil paintings and sketches."

Such is the character of Fiona's dog Zoomie that he has his own internet following on social networking site Facebook, where he makes daily observations, thoughts and reflections on life as a dog.

Fiona's work is part of her Modern Art Dog Project, which studies the images of dogs in contemporary culture and how we use and manipulate such images to integrate our parallel species.

After its launch on Friday 3 September, Gray's School of Art Masters Degree Show will be open to the public until Saturday 11 September, from 10am-8pm Monday to Friday and 10am-5pm on Saturdays.

For more information, please visit www.rgu.ac.uk/mastersdegreeshow.

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