Since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art in 2000, I have specialized in commissioned portraiture. Alongside this, my gallery artwork is based on my experience of Britain’s group identity crisis. Fuelled by design and technology of several decades, the 1990s challenged us to take the final step and ‘chuck out that chintz’. We were urged toward a streamlined, functional life-style, free from frills and fancy. And all the more efficient for it! This is how we should be! However, sitting at our flat pack table, waiting for our quorn-mince to defrost and worrying about our carbon footprint offers little comfort after our labours. Never fear! Our high street designers are here to save us, and we can now once more indulge our nostalgia in shops and bars offering ‘old’ leather sofas, ‘period’ wallpapers and dusty floral lampshades. Hurrah for the ‘good old days’! This is who we were! With so many conflicting ideas of the future and the past influencing our group consciousness, it becomes very difficult to select from the shelves, a personal identity. As a painter, the images, patterns, objects which I select from infinite sources are, I suppose, an attempt to create a personal brand from the chaos. This sits somewhere between comfort and horror. If you will indulge me, this is who I am. For all enquiries please visit www.francescahudson.co.uk, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.