Fiona Gavino

Fiona Gavino of Australian, Filipino, and Maori heritage, is described as an intercultural artist working the traditional into the contemporary. 

Graduating from Charles Darwin University with a BA Visual Arts  in 2006 and  relocating to Fremantle in 2007, Gavino is a nationally recognised fibre artist with basketry as the foundation to her practice. 

There is an undeniable crafted aesthetic to her work and through the artist’s attentive conceptual ideas she pushes the boundaries of what basketry can physically do and say. Gavino was a finalist in the John Stringer Art Prize, 2020 and an exhibiting artist in the IOTA 2021. 

Her work is held in the John Curtin University collection, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and numerous private collections.

FEATURED WORK

2021

Seated nude dreaming is a reworking of a 2D piece titled ‘On the banig we dream’, a banig being a woven sleeping mat traditionally used in the Philippines. This three dimensional free formed sculpture references Picasso’s Seated Nude (1909-10). For many years Gavino has been exploring the idea of bifurcated surfaces with her woven forms, giving static objects an appearance of fluidity and movement. The plastic packing strapping is woven using a technique known as whiti (plaiting) widely used in both Maori and Filipino weaving traditions and when working in this way she is paying homage to her grandfather.