Laura Lancaster
Page 1 | Biography
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untitled 2010 oil on board 40x50cm
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The source of Lancaster’s paintings, drawings and installations use found photographs, slides and cine films of strangers - found in flea markets junk shops etc as their source.
The translation of these lost images into paint becomes an investigation into artistic control, a devotional act on the artist’s part; with some installation works taking months to complete, whilst the resulting anonymity imposed onto the subject provides a distancing mechanism. The artist often employs minimalist tactics, which offset the sentimentality of the source.
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untitled2010, oil on canvas 30x40cm
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utitled 2010 oil on board,80x110cm
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untitled 2010, oil on board 60x80cm
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untitled 2007, mixed media on found book pages,
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Lancaster’s process orientated practice forms an ongoing dialogue between the languages of painting and photography, focusing on the manipulation of the tension between the visceral qualities of the paint and the image it depicts.
Lancaster embraces the ambiguity that results from this transformation process, allowing the everyday and mundane to take on odd, surreal qualities, becoming poignant melancholic icons. The appropriation of found imagery allows for a focus on the making/painting process itself and the slippage between artistic intention and result.
Lancasters work plays with the functional intent of the source photographs which were not intended as works of art but for preservation of time/memory. The redundancy and sense of failure these source images evokes allows the artist to reflect on, and undermine the idea of the painter as a heroic character.
Once sentimental imagery opens up, and when painted takes on a universal, familiar quality, and allows the artist to reference numerous styles and genres of painting as well as touch the history of painting as a medium.
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Laura Lancaster’s practice forms an ongoing exploration into the use of found imagery and the possibilities of painting in contemporary art.
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untitled 2010, oil on board, 60x80cm
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Laura Lancaster was born in Hartlepool in 1979 and graduated from Fine Art at Northumbria University in 2001. Her
work has been exhibited in a number of high profile exhibitions internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Ego
Documents. The Autobiographical in Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; 'Mediations' Voyage
Sentimental, Poznan Biennial, Poland; Paintings From England & America, Crisp, London; Dawning Of An Aspect,
Green On Red Gallery, Dublin; Secret Exhibition, Ma2 Gallery, Tokyo; Behind, Monitor, Rome; Micro Narratives,
Musee d'Art Moderne, Saint-Etienne; Past as Present, York Art Gallery; Formal Dining, Hales Gallery, London;
Giardino Luoghi Della Piccola Realta, Palazzo Della Arte Napoli; Local Stories, Museum of Modern Art Oxford; Blue
Star Red Wedge, Glasgow International; When I Lived in Modern Times, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art,
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