Sunday Read: From the Perspective of Angels: The Paintings of Frances Featherstone

There is a certain kind of silence that only exists beneath a blanket. A hush that arrives when you decide to retreat to bed. Not to sleep, but to withdraw with a book in hand, knees tucked up, the outside world held at arm’s length. Many of us knew this instinct as children: to disappear beneath the covers with a torch and a story, to press ourselves into the smallest private space we could find, and travel somewhere else entirely. That feeling sits at the heart of From the Perspective of the Angels, the new book bringing together the intimate paintings of Frances Featherstone, with a meditative text by writer Munir Hassan.

The Tale Of Lazy mornings, Oil on Linen, 90 by 80cm. Courtesy of Frances Featherstone.

Featherstone is a painter deeply attuned to inner worlds. In her Groombridge studio, she works in oil, using domestic space as emotional terrain. Her figures are often seen reading, reclining, or lost in reverie. They do not seem lonely, only quietly self-contained in the interiors they inhabit, the soft coverlets the sink into becoming companions, guardians even. The rooms are stitched with pattern and memory: folded quilts, threadbare rugs, velvet cushions softened by years of use. In Featherstone’s hands, textiles become psychological clues of cloth as comfort and fabric as a keeper of time...

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Image Credits:

Lead: Pillow Talk, 75 by 60cm, Frances Featherstone. Received a Certificate of Commendation for an exceptional work at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Exhibition. Honourable Mention Almenara Prize, 2025.

All further images as credited in photo captions.