Bettina Fung | 馮允珊 is an artist based in London, UK. She creates two dimensional, performative and site specific works. She is interested in sharing her process of making, hence allowing her work to unfold over time before an audience. She is motivated by the expansive and immediate nature of drawing and often incorporates it into her live art practice, where she utilises the performative aspect of drawing as a way to explore being.

Earlier works such as The Space Between The Lines (2016), Invoking Resonance (2016) and PANICACT[7.11.14] (2014) explored the liminal space between nothing and existence that is potent with possibilities, and treated drawing as a ritualistic practice to aid coming to terms with the unknown. Gradually Bettina began involving audience members to be active participants in the development of her artwork as demonstrated in Communion  (2016) – a work on collaboration, I am tired with you (2018/19) - on productivity and progress, and Trees Talk (2021) with Catherine Harrington - on care and support that was inspired by trees’ communicative systems.

Keen on exploring different ways to draw and notably playing with the correlation between movement and line, Bettina explores moving and drawing in space with her body, as demonstrated in String Figures (2019) and Wanderings (2019).

As a Hong Kong born British-Chinese person raised in the UK, she started reflecting on her own lived experiences and instigated conversations with UK based East and Southeast Asian artists during her residency with Asia-Art-Activism Research Network at Raven Row in 2018. This culminated in a publication in collaboration with Erika Tan titled A Dialogue Still In The Making 2002/2018.  Her research on artist Li Yuan-Chia in 2018/19 resulted in the performance drawing Towards All & Nothing (2019) that enabled her to explore and contemplate further the subject of legacy and sense of belonging for someone who migrated to the UK.

In 2020, during the pandemic, Bettina became curious in alternative ways of presenting and creating live art over the internet, where she contemplated the notions of space and liveness in the virtual realm by experimenting with readily available and existing online platforms. This resulted in a number of online live performances/happenings such as Towards All & Nothing (in reflection) (2020) and The Sea Changes Into Words (2021), which also explores the ideas of commoning, shared authorship and creative collective action.

Alongside her live art practice Bettina continues to create 2D drawings which could be viewed here.

Bettina’s background is in computer animation. She gained her degree in Bournemouth University (NCCA) in 2005, where her animated short Sushi was screened at film festivals in the UK and Australia. Bettina has exhibited throughout London, nationally and abroad. She was a recipient of the a-n Artist Information Company's New Collaborations Bursary in 2014 to carry out collaborative research in combining traditional drawing methods with interactive design technologies. In 2018, she was awarded Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts award in supporting her solo exhibition, Imprints of Passing Time, at Surface Gallery in Nottingham. In 2021, she was commissioned by Aspex Gallery to create the digital artwork The Sea Changes Into Words.

With a keen interest in alternative art education and peer-led learning, Bettina took part in Syllabus IV, an alternative peer-led artist development and learning programme delivered by six UK arts institutions: Wysing Art Centre, Spike Island, Studio Voltaire, Iniva, S1 Artspace and Eastside Projects. In 2020, Bettina was awarded a bursary by Airspace Gallery (as part of the Artists Make Change project) to instigate a peer-led learning group to carry out research on artists making social change.

Currently Bettina is developing new work around the subjects of loss, collective mourning and commemoration and has also expanded her practice into tattooing.

In addition, Bettina develops and leads workshops for different age groups and have been working with a wide range of arts organisations since 2016, please visit here for more information on this aspect of Bettina’s practice.