Laura Lancaster: My Echo, My Shadow
16th March, 2024 – 30th June, 2024
NGCA Main Gallery
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art
c/o National Glass Centre
Liberty Way
Sunderland
SR6 0GL
FREE / No booking required
My Echo, My Shadow is the largest solo show to date of British painter Laura Lancaster. Presenting new paintings and drawings made over the last few years My Echo, My Shadow delves into the current practice of one of the North East’s most celebrated and accomplished painters.
The source of Lancaster’s paintings and drawings are found photographs, slides and cine films of strangers, purchased from online auction sites, flea markets and junk shops. She translates these lost and discarded memories into paintings which sit ambiguously between abstraction and figuration.
The highly gestural, visceral and expressive application of paint allows the everyday and mundane to become surreal, grotesque and poignantly melancholic. Challenging the formal language of painting and photography Lancaster probes the reliability of the photograph as a record or snapshot replacing representation with nostalgia, the familiar with the dreamlike, and lived experience with collective consciousness.
Confronting a gendered history of painting, Lancaster draws upon numerous styles and genres as well as touching on the history of painting as a medium. The artist paints women in classical poses, be it in front of mirrors, in lush green landscapes or in moments of rest. However, these motifs, reimagined by Lancaster, avoid a simple passive reading, instead they allude to confinement, vulnerability and control.
Guided in the direction of abstraction the paintings refrain from the voyeurism historically associated with female figures within the conventions of traditional painting. Lancaster’s painting process starts with drawing. The drawings aim not to copy the photos she finds but rather to encapsulate the feeling that she gets when she looks at them. From each drawing, she makes a painting, and then from that painting, another painting, and so on. My Echo, My Shadow includes a selection of these drawings placing Lancaster’s paintings in context and illuminating the full breath of her practice.
Jon Weston, Curator of Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art says ‘We are delighted to host the largest show of Laura’s incredible paintings and drawings to date. Over recent years Laura has been pushing the boundaries of her practice and producing work which delves into the history of painting readdressing the position of the female figure. This marks the perfect time to focus on Laura’s recent work. We look forward to welcoming visitors from across Laura’s home region of the Northeast and further afield, internationally, to experience her work.’
Laura Lancaster: My Echo, My Shadow opens on the 16th of March, 2024 until the 30th of June, 2024 Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art
©2024 Laura Lancaster, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art
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