“I started drawing on July 10th 1999 in India” Marian Fannon told me “.....I had never studied art or drawn a thing in my life before that. Just got the urge one day and when Anthony [Christian] saw the results, he encouraged me to carry on and so it went.......” What the artist Anthony Christian saw was a sense of form and a distinctive approach to the medium. One notices immediately a decorative skill, a facility for filigree detail, and a warm yet subtle sense of colour. If this were all Marian had to offer hers would be a very pleasant if minor talent, but look closer and you find a strong compositional sense and what I can only describe as a mystical insight. I was first attracted to Marian’s Mandala drawings because, while holding fast to the profound spiritual qualities of the traditional Mandala, her versions invested the old form with new life, a new-minted freshness, a vibrancy of colour. Her animal drawings have a similar appeal. Starting with the original beast, be it elephant, rhino, cockerel or some other creature, Marian launches into a surreal fantasia of colour and decorative detail. And yet somehow, almost miraculously, she remains true to the essence of the creature she sets out with. Recently she has been experimenting with floral and semi-abstract patterns. These are among her finest pieces because they retain and build upon the two pillars of her art, a strong sense of form and a joyous exuberance of colour and detail. The collaborative work with Anthony Christian adds yet another dimension to her art. The harmony of these pieces and their distinct quality are such they appear to be the work of another major artist, not the work of two. Should he/she be called Anthony Fannon or Marian Christian? You decide. Reggie Oliver
