Fiona Hoop A Beautiful Duet

Sometimes, two heads are better than one. Just ask Canadian artist Fiona Hoop. Or better yet, ask the two ladies standing beside the painting, brandishing paintbrushes in their studio. Fiona Hoop is a pseudonym for visual artists Mary Kennedy and Michele Woodey, who began painting together many years ago. The pair met in 2000 when they were creating murals and faux finishes on the concrete walls of what is now the Rogers Centre sports and entertainment complex. They enjoyed working together so much, they struck up a partnership. For two years, Mary and Michele worked as faux finishers climbing ladders and balancing on scaffolding as they applied their trade. "It was very physical work': says Michele, "and far removed from the fine art that we both loved. One day when we were painting fairies on a bedroom wall, we looked at each other and said, `Why are we doing this? There must be an easier way to make money:"

The answer was Fiona Hoop, and in 2002 the artists' true collaboration began. Mary graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1989, receiving OCAD's Experimental Arts Award in Painting. As a solo artist, her work was shown in the Bau-Xi and Christopher Cutts galleries in Toronto and the Lois Shayne Galleries in Montreal. Michele studied at the Brighton School of Arts in England and graduated with her Fine Arts honours degree in 1979. Working as an art restorer in London, Michele also taught drawing, painting, printmaking and photography while continuing to develop her own style. It was her first Canadian show at the Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto that lured Michele away from the UK. She settled here and took the job as Joint Head of Montessori School art programs. Mary's physical, expressive brushwork is the perfect foil for Michele's skillful application of colour and detail, and it is their diversity that makes Fiona Hoop such a successful composite. Mary starts each painting — abstract, collage, landscape, figurative or still-life — giving the piece structure and direction. When she is happy with the bones, she passes it to Michele, who applies the first layer of flesh — the finer elements and the chromaticity. "Mary is great at grounding the concept, pulling the idea down from thin air and giving it physical form': says Michele. "She structures the base or foundation of the work, while still leaving me enough room to take the painting in many different directions!' Michele, on the other hand, "is an expert with colour': says Mary. "She is a master at transitioning from one pigment to the next, making sure the change is seamless so your eye can move across the canvas without interruption." Michele and Mary pass a painting back and forth many times before it is ready for Fiona's signature, which is always signed by Michele.

"We like to think of the process as music,

and ourselves as members of an orchestra."

"We each add our own instrumentation to the score. "The result is a symphony, and ever since Fiona Hoop started to appear in galleries in North American and around the world, the audience has been clamouring for an encore. "The first five years were crazy; says Mary. "There was such a demand for our paintings that we were working non-stop. "The frenetic pace was beginning to take a physical toll. Michele developed a trapped nerve in her shoulder and arm. "We were exhausted." "The recession actually hit at a good time for us," says Michele. "We got to slow down, and we even started taking separate holidays!"

"She's not joking," says Mary with a laugh. "In the beginning, we had to take our vacations together." Not that their annual trips to Cuba offered much in the way of respite. "We brought all our supplies with us and turned our hotel room into a studio. I took the early shift and Michele took the afternoon shift. We'd meet up in the evenings at the champagne bar!" Most of the work in those early days was commissioned. "We were painting what other people wanted," Mary says. "We had to be very disciplined — from subject matter to size to colour — and we had to work fast!' Eventually, Fiona Hoop got to the point where she could paint more personal work, and explore other techniques and ideas, and there was a ready market for it. Today, the girls are represented in galleries across Canada, the US and internationally, and their work is embraced by individual and corporate collectors around the world. (A large 8' x 8' piece hangs in the lobby of the Xerox Building on Bloor Street, and a number of Fiona Hoop paintings grace the walls of the new Ritz Carlton on Wellington Street.) And while many people might not know it, they have likely seen — or even own — a Fiona Hoop. Her fine art and decorative posters are sold worldwide, as are her giclee's, which are marketed in home furnishing stores. Chances are, if you've been to a Target, Home Sense or Winners you've admired — and perhaps purchased — a Fiona Hoop. The global appeal of the girls' work lies in its accessibility; in their ability to blend traditional fine art skills and diverse styles with an awareness of contemporary colour and design. Working as a duet for so long has enabled them to 'converse in paint,' integrating their individual work processes in complex layers. "We usually think of the painter as a solitary figure," says Mary, "but our process brings to mind other arts such as music, dance and theatre, where each individual feeds off the creativity of the others in the creation of a seamless whole." "It's like alchemy': says Michele. "When we combine our skills, the result equals so much more than the sum of the parts."