Cecilia Fiona
Time in EST
'Creatures of Silence' takes place over three hours inside the gallery booth at Independent, involving two performers dressed in Fiona's costumes and moving around a painted screen. At some moments throughout the performance, the creatures may be still, while at others they are more animated, autonomously creating a unique sequence of fluctuating juxtapositions with the painted screen.
The performance is improvised, durational, and silent. The performers utilise a repertoire of movements that are slow and attempt to transform into something other and to connect to the earth and the cosmos. Having explored how mythical labyrinth-dance connects to a ritual in antiquity during her Art History studies, Fiona brings into her installation these ideas and her fascination with the manner in which movement and dance have a potential to transform our perspective and our bodies - creating access to a dream like state of mind.
"at the London Basel gallery Vitrine (booth A. 1), the Danish artist Cecilia Fiona's painted marks spill out from the canvas onto a folding screen, and even costumes she has created for a performance on Saturday from 11am to 2pm. Here, the artist and a cohort will perform in the booth, wearing the hand-painted costumes and masks inspired by her recently deceased grandmother, who came to Fiona in a dream, as a bird. Call it painting, ritual or séance, there's something poignant about this in an art fair in TriBeCa, where performance art used to be quotidian, rather than the exception." - Martha Schwendener, in The New York Times, feature 'Independent, More Inclusive Than Ever', published 11 May 2023.
Performed by Nola Sporn Smith and Cecilia Fiona
Cecilia Fiona (b. 1997, Copenhagen, DK) lives and works in Copenhagen, DK. She holds a BA in Art History from the University of Copenhagen, DK (2021). In 2022, she was on the invited residency El Castillete, Madrid, ES (2022).
She has exhibited internationally in galleries and institutes including: The Reventlow-Museum, Lolland, DK; VITRINE, Basel, CH; The Hole, Los Angeles, USA; SuperZoom Art (in collaboration with The Hole, NY) Paris, FR; Marinaro Gallery, New York, USA; Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen, DK; Gallery Q (The Royal Danish Academy of Art), Copenhagen, DK; Formation Gallery, København, DK; and Sapling, London, UK.
The artist's work is in private collections in Europe and the US, including the Bech Risvig Collection (DK) which featured in a 2021 Art Net Article with a quote from the collector "The most recent acquisition is a beautiful painting by the emerging Danish artist Cecilia Fiona. I'm really looking forward to following her career in the coming years - I think she's a great talent and truly think she has a bright future ahead of her."