Bobbye Fermie
Amsterdam-born contemporary artist Bobbye Fermie is known for her dreamlike works on paper that explore introspective figures portrayed in imaginary spaces. Solitary, but quietly self-assured, her female protagonists are described by the artist as ‘based on my own characteristics and experiences’ rather than being ‘a direct translation or self-portrait’.
Bobbye’s practice has evolved through work made primarily in watercolour and collage but in early 2023, she begun to experiment with printmaking. In these new images, a male and female pairing has been introduced, representing a progression from the isolation suggested in previous works. Bobbye describes this couple simply as representing ‘a union’. Her use of a pared-down palette lends these new prints a gentle gravitas and heightens their graphic quality. Many of these works have been hand-printed in Bobbye’s north London studio; she has also produced a number of them at Artichoke Print Workshop in Brixton, south east London.
Bobbye studied in the Netherlands and Belgium before moving to London in 2014 to attend the Royal Drawing School. She has undertaken artistic residencies in the UK and Italy and her work has been featured in several publications. She has exhibited widely in the UK and her work is currently held at several collections, including the Morritz-Heyman Collection, The Royal Collection and Soho House. We were proud to launch Bobbye’s first series of original prints titled ‘Tales of the Home’ in early 2023, and subsequently exhibited Bobbye’s work in our group exhibition ‘Power Play’. Bobbye lives and works in north London.
Photograph of Bobbye in her studio by Brynley Odu Davies.