The Paint Witch: Caitlin Ffrench’s Earthy Art

A single visit to Iceland can turn into something bigger. For some people, this country exerts a magnetic fascination that keeps them continually returning for years — or even decades.

Caitlin Ffrench is one such person. A Canadian artist who first came to Iceland in 2014, she’s since been back several times to make work, collect materials, explore and deepen her bond with the country.

“I feel like I’ve been haunted by the landscape,” she says. “By the wind and by certain spots, like a gravel pit near Stykkishólmur and the Heinabergsjökull glacier. There’s something that keeps pulling me, like I tied an invisible thread between myself and it.”

Things fall apart

Caitlin’s practise includes a diverse range of media, from ceramics, to film photography, to printmaking and paint-making. It also engages with a variety of topics and issues, from the environmental to the autobiographical.

“I’ve been talking about landscape, climate change and the experience of living in a body that seemingly falls apart sometimes,” she says. “I’m an interdisciplinary land-based artist. I like to work with natural materials from the different places that I visit. It’s almost like working with materials from where I’m visiting means that I can hold part of it within my heart and in my practice — all of that is centred within telling the story of my body and the land.”

“I’m a practising pagan, and witches talk to the land.”

It was through this work that Caitlin discovered the work of Glenn Albrecht, the Australian sustainability professor who coined the term “solastalgia”. “He came up with this idea in 2007 that we have this collective grief for the planet that’s in peril and dying,” she says. “As soon as I heard it, I was like: that’s it. And then the relationship between that and my body — living with endometriosis, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.”

“I’ve been finding that relationship between the land and my body,” Caitlin continues. “Between receding glaciers and my own loss of balance, which is why I walk with a cane. Between forest fires, which are very prevalent where I’m from, and the overwhelming swelling in my body from the arthritis. It’s like finding these relationships and being able to visually show what that means.”

Talk to the land

Part of this work involves finding pigment in the ground and using it to create handmade paint. Caitlin seeks out fragments of iron-rich ochre, collects them and processes them by hand. “I take teeny tiny little stones,” she says. “You don’t need much. I grind them down with a mortar and pestle, run it through a sieve and wash it. Then I use it to either colour cloth, or to make paint or printmaking ink.”

This process involves navigating ethical questions about taking from the land, even in small amounts. “That’s something that I’m constantly grappling with,” says Caitlin. “Questions like ‘what am I entitled to?’ and ‘how can I do this in a good way?’ It’s about connecting with the land, actually asking permission out loud and listening. Sometimes you get this feeling that the land doesn’t want that collaboration. And sometimes it does. It’s about listening to that, which might sound a little bit like… woo. But I’m a practising pagan and witches talk to the land.”

Hold my feet

But pigments aren’t only found in the wilderness. It turns out that we might be walking past precious materials every day, even in downtown Reykjavík.

“When I was here in 2019, they were doing some work on the sewer line or whatever at the Culture House,” says Caitlin. “There was a big open pit. I was walking to the pool with some other SÍM residents and I was like: ‘can you hold my bag?’ I got myself under the fence, but only halfway, and got this sweet German man named Tillman to hold my feet.”

“I grabbed a scoop of ochre, bagged it up, took it back and washed and cleaned it,” she recounts. “It was this beautiful orangey brown pigment from a band of ochre that hadn’t been seen for hundreds of years. You almost feel like an archaeologist — finding tiny bits of magic before they get covered back up.”

Wind and water

Caitlin’s current visit to Iceland is a research trip that was funded by the Audain Foundation, an arts funding body in Canada. It will take Caitlin up to Blönduós to make new work and engage in research at a textiles residency.

“I found a band of ochre that hadn’t been seen for hundreds of years.”

“It’s right beside the textile museum,” she says. “It’s this tiny town on the edge of the world where it’s windy every day. So I’ll go and be haunted by the wind there. The work will be a collaboration between the land and my body — I’ll be working plant-based and mineral-based pigments into different pieces of weaving. It’s very embodied work that requires constant movement to create cloth and then to colour it, which is really exciting.”

Never one to rest on her laurels, Caitlin will also use the time to start working with sound. “I’ll be speaking with the land,” she says. “Having conversations with the wind and with the water. And so somehow that’ll make its way into the work. I’m not quite sure how yet. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be doing.” She smiles. “Just fighting for my life, I guess.”

Find out more at caitlinffrench.com, and see her work on Instagram and TikTok.