I am an innovative Fine Artist with experience as an Arts Educator. My work begins with my camera to record observations and capture my experiences that will later translate into a project or a piece of work that relates to a chosen landscape, cityscape and or theme that I am interested in.
Natural landscape is my ‘safe place’. A place to creatively explore my primordial self.
In my current studies as an MA fine Art Student I aim to continue researching and producing environmentally conscious works. Since recorded time the landscape has been repeatedly in flux; some of this change has been created by natural elements and others are manmade. The new scale of recent human activity and its ever expanding growth opens up more discourse surrounding the era of the Anthropocene.
Previously I made relief prints with re-used polystyrene, and I used my work in 2008 to kick start the waste debate: highlighting the inadequacies of our recycling facilities and overproduction of packaging. I have run print workshops themed around this and exhibited my own prints made using this material some of which were published in a book. (Marshal 2015).
Currently I also use intaglio and relief printing techniques such as; etching, drypoint, collagraph, linocut and screen print to realize my designs in drawings from everyday observations, reflecting mood and feeling with colour and texture.
One of the things I like about Art is that it can challenge our perceptions of something. In my more recent undertakings I have been using a more 3 dimensional approach to show my relationship to landscape and materiality. I try to find the personal meanings of objects and places and what that can convey to us over time. I like the idea that the context of an artefact or a place, can have a powerful influence on our understanding of it and the unconscious emotional responses that we are likely to have towards it.
Website: www.louisemaclaren.com