Arusha Gallery Presents MIDNIGHT CANDY By Fiona Finnegan

Arusha Gallery will to present Midnight Candy by Fiona Finnegan from 31st October - 21st November 2020 in what will be the first solo show by the artist in Scotland.

Having initially studied Music and Visual Practice at Brighton University, it's perhaps unsurprising that much of Finnegan's work is musically inspired. This inspiration is evident in Midnight Candy which is comprised of many works titled with excerpts of song lyrics such as, 'Tupelo' and 'But the Sun is Eclipsed by the Moon'. Although the works do not aim to directly represent these lyrics, they draw from them a certain mood and sensibility - capturing the artist's distinctive creative style, fusing dark gothic mysticism with a radical rock 'n' roll punch. The title of the show itself, Midnight Candy - a flower which only blooms in the moonlight, releasing a sweet intoxicating scent which intensifies with the darkness, wonderfully evokes Finnegan's unique artistic practice, inspired by the natural environment and never rushed.

Finnegan is a painter who allows her work to form organically, preferring not to push herself towards a deadline, meaning each collection is fully formed in advance of each exhibition which often span months or years - ultimately providing the viewer with a real sense of cohesion and unity when looking at the work. Midnight Candy is no exception and in this haunting, almost mythical collection, the artist's work evokes a sense of Romanticism in relation to her approach to external landscapes, with each piece seemingly looking to these places to find meaning.

What with things being as Apple Mac/Harry Potter as they are, it comes as no surprise that magic - like feminism/homosexuality/counterculture, and other previous unfathomables- has been gentrified. To conform magic with consumer values required a tidying, a softening re-appropriation.

This was primarily achieved though a co-opting of magical vocabulary for bourgeois ends, e.g./i.e. to sell cars/ mortgages/art/coffee... Sprite is lemonade, Elf a petrol station, Nike no longer the winged goddess of victory! Versace has graphic-designed Medusa beyond recognition, as have Starf-cks the double-tailed mermaid.

Call me paranoid, but I'm gonna go with this blitzkrieg being a deliberate attempt on the part of our arch-overlords (you know who you are!) to make it harder, but at once more important than ever, for folk to occupy a position of radical fantasy.

Harder but not impossible... for myriad occurrences - the dawn chorus, a supermoon, twilight, for example - prompt revellers to pause in their stumble, holiday-makers to miss folk back home and newborns to bristle with excitement. Us few wild children, alert and cautious, hip to how urgent and how tangible the occasion is.

Fiona Finnegan is a painter. She lives and works in Belfast.

Iphgenia Baal is away with the faeries.

Fiona Finnegan said: "My work is interested in natural phenomena and the human experience of it both real and imagined, and in particular at the interface between the cosmos and mythology."

Agnieszka Prendota, Creative Director at Arusha Gallery said: "We present Midnight Candy a solo show by Fiona Finnegan and I am so thrilled to see this group of hauntingly beautiful works shown in the midst of Scottish autumn. Their romantic outreach and contemplative atmosphere have the power to recenter, as well as inspire a longing - nudging the viewer towards a search for meaning and delight in their physical form. The exhibition marks an important milestone in our journey with the artist working in close collaboration with Domobaal in London to realise this wonderful show."

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