www.ionamaclean.co.uk
Iona Maclean grew up on the Sussex coast. As a child she would always be found gazing into rock pools and dragging large pieces of seaweed across the sand dunes. When she wasn't outdoors she could be found hiding in her small bedroom, painting pictures of castles, fairies, dresses and animals, and daydreaming, reading and singing to her heart's content.
At the age of five, she was taken to the National Gallery by Mr Renoir, a wonderful, eccentric old art historian, who showed her as many paintings as a five year old could contemplate. He explained what each painting meant and began to unravel the mystery of beautiful art to the little girl, who was, by this point enraptured with all she saw before her.
Iona immersed herself in a world of folklore and history, absorbing the imagery of all the artists she could discover. As she grew up, she travelled to Florence, Rome, Athens, Venice, Paris, Marrakech...as many places as possible to feed her imagination. She cried in front of Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' and it was a defining moment realising that art could create strong emotion and capture the human heart.
She became interested in the Arts and Crafts movement. This was followed by architecture, graffiti, the Mexican and Spanish communist art movements, Bollywood, African and Islamic art, and photography. She is also deeply interested in the British countryside and it's inhabitants, who can still be found practising age old crafts to this day and telling ghost stories to chill the spine.
Iona graduated from Surrey with a BA Hons in Art and English Literature and has spent the last five years in West Dorset. She now lives in Southampton.
Heroes: Frida Kahlo, Caravaggio, Botticelli, Reynolds, Turner, Mary Spencer Watson, Jill Barklem, Beatrix Potter, Joni Mitchell, Rossetti, Milton, Denys Lasdun, Mucha.
Loves: Beautiful Paul playing his guitar, my niece and nephew Lizzie and Tom, stuffed vine leaves, my tent, the V&A on a quiet day, sea swimming, dancing to raw funk, simple jewellery, Catholic kitsch, soil under my fingernails, warm nights in my garden with tealights everywhere, old ladies with tarot decks, mountains topped with snow, the smell of old books, crab sandwiches, Yorkshire tea, my cracked tagine, Almodovar films, the New Forest at dawn, any cat who chooses to spend time with me.