Marion Flanagan is a multi-disciplinary Canadian artist working in Toronto and London, UK. Her work moves between sculpture, painting, photography, and installation, always considering the materiality of the chosen medium and its potential for narrative expression.

Flanagan’s practice investigates the fragile relationship between humans and nature, the uses and abuses of resources and spaces, and the attempt to define areas of commonality between the bodies of human beings and the substances of the natural world. This research takes in a broad range of specialisms from geography to politics to biology. An insistence on the analysis of petroleum production has emerged from recent works. Using synthetic rubber (a petroleum industry by-product) combined with cement, and metal, she references the movement of toxic materials through the natural world, and into our domestic lives. When painting, Flanagan uses monoprinting as a primary structure, and then builds texture and colour in slow abstract forms. The resulting works seem by turns industrial and natural; they are reminiscent of terrain-mapping, surfaces of water, pollution, or images from a microscope or drone camera. In the end, Flanagan’s work reveals the impact of our actions upon the natural world at a local and global level. She encourages us to create a world that treats our environments and fellow beings with care.