Wednesday, October 07, 2015

The Explorations of the Universal Child



“The reason I paint is because I love paint.”
Lisa Wright

For the classically trained figurative artist Lisa Wright the medium of her choice and her subject matter are connected through the inherent fleeting unpredictability they share.

Whilst Wright’s practice is underpinned by drawing it is the painting process that continues to draw her back into the studio.

As she said in the video Walking Through Beautiful “I enjoy using it [paint], I enjoy the unpredictability of it, I enjoy, sort of, trying to control it and see what it does and finding new ways of applying it.”

Likewise her unsentimental depiction of childhood which started with her using her own children as the subjects for her work. Not as portraits but as the essence of that universal time in life we all share.
“It’s about trying to pin down that moment. It’s a very fleeting thing. These times pass very very quickly and it’s about my connection to childhood,” Wright says.

“I don’t think we give ourselves time to contemplate these very simple things that allow ourselves to be in that moment, that sort of space. It’s probably why I create these paintings in order for me to be, sort of, sustain that feeling of being in that space. It is a bitter-sweet passing of that moment, it’s inevitable, it has to pass. But it’s quite a bitter-sweet thing and I think to have the contrast is what I want in the paintings.”

And Wright’s painting process enables this exploration.

“These paintings come about through that process of doing and playing and seeing and what happens if, and I think it’s very rare for them to end up how they started. I might have a clear sense from the outset of what I want to do but very often that just kind of gets dissolved along the way and then it becomes something else. It has to go on that journey in order for it to come through in an authentic and convincing way for me.”


Wright’s current exhibition The Unversed is on show at London’s Gallery 8 until the 17th of October.


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