Tag: artist talks

Lee Maelzer is a London based artist, she was born and studied in London. She left school at 13 and went to study or at Saint Martin’s College of Art and design, gaining a BA Hons first class later at the Royal Academy of arts and she obtained her Masters in Fine Art. Since 2005 she has exhibited in nine solo exhibitions and widely in Group exhibitions including one at Christy’s London. She also curated 7 exhibitions in London.

She practices as a painter but also explores collage and sculpture and videos. Her paintings are large as she likes them to take up large spaces. The uses of white in her work reflects a certain morbidity, abandonment but also a sense of light. When painting she likes to use a ground like greens or greys to take away the whiteness of the board before starting her piece and has a couple of pieces on the go at once , some of how work takes one to three months to complete.

In her childhood up to the age of 8 she spent time in Vancouver and during this time she went through a lot of hardship which has made her into the artist she is today.

She talked about how she likes to take photos for reference but only used for a short time the rest is from her imagination and in some cases dreams that she has had. She also only likes to use pictures she’s taken herself which is something I understand as it is always good to have your own perspective of a place or a person.

In her young adult life, she talks with period why she went through six years of addiction drugs and alcohol which made her work suffer but she bounced back afterwards. one of her residences was in Mexico where she saw lots of derelict buildings because of war not necessarily decay. She advised that people should do residencies if given the chance as it is a unique experience.

She is inspired by artists such as Goya, van Eyck contemporary artists such as Pia Hue, William Kentridge and Diane Abers.

as we’re restricted right now with covid, Lee is working at a small scale doing paintings taken from Facebook adverts why people are selling my items on marketplace this allows her to show modern life as the seller is using their home to photograph in an the scene is already set of their everyday life. due to the size of the large scale pieces she spoke about painting on panels rather than one large piece so that she can get through doorways and transport it easily.

she seems to feature sinks a lot in her work which could have a hidden meaning to her childhood.

She had opportunities to visit abandoned places like Hackney hospital where she was able to take photos to use as references she likes her paintings have a texture and has been known to add cotton then pull off to give line texture to her painting.

Lee has a large studio which she shares with another artist. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to have my own studio too and it would be good to have some company as you can go a bit crazy when you’re on your own.

http://www.leemaelzer.com/

http://www.leemaelzer.com/index.php?/contact/biography/2/

Sam Francis Read decides to include his middle name when talking about himself as there are a lot of Sam Read’s in the world and so he wanted his name to be more distinguished and unique. During the artist talk, he mentioned that he isn’t in touch with anyone from his BA degree. He is currently doing a masters course at Leeds. He liked the fact that if you search up your name into google and add artist to it, you usually find a landscape artist.

Sam Francis Read is an artist who enjoys working with memory and animated elements. His focus is on drawing and digital compositions that extend to print, sculpture and moving image. He likes to use imagery to show him new possibilities of collections of the rehabilitation of cultural detritus trivia and phantasmagoria, as these categories really resonate with him.

After he graduated from DMU, he went to Two Queens which is one of the best studios and artist led galleries in Leicester. He joined the summer school program and they helped him identify his unique voice. He got to exhibit his work in a small space which involved contemporary ideas of collected mythology. This is where his love of fantasy and niche media began. He made a woodcut which he explored a catastrophe of a post apocalyptic situation which was the reason for the inclusion of steel girders and everything being in black and white. He decided to branch out by including primary colours (blue, red and yellow). The use of primary colours in his work was evident in his solo exhibition at Collective in Nottingham. Since then, this has been renamed. There is a space called IK Sheds in which you are able to wear party hats whilst walking around the gallery, these hats also had a sculptural function. The hats had interesting pop colours and shapes.

Sam Francis Read had an exhibition in Flat 5 which is another artist led space based in their front room. This isn’t very well known as they don’t publicize events a lot and so it is based heavily on social networks. You can apply for a residency there and it is known as the sofa residency as you are based on the sofa for most of your time there. Sam had a dual exhibition with Craig Parr focused on Blue Monday which is an allegedly depressing day of the year. During this time, companies try to sell package holidays to cheer people up. He wanted to turn this idea on its head and create an alternative to the holiday, getting away from the idea of what an holiday is. They called it Red Monday so instead if it being sad/miserable, they had a party in the space and the windows/signs were inspired by January sales due to the time of the exhibition, with everything closing down. They decided to use vinyl as this is usually the material in shop windows and formed machines for that. There were drawings and paintings on the wall and moving image which was the reason for projections. He enjoyed working with Craig as it was funny and an unsubtle piece of advertising.

He did a project where he worked with found objects and took them apart and changed them. After he had changed the object, he then photographed it and uploaded it to google images which gave a different image result. He then edited the image in photoshop and made it so you couldn’t tell what the original object was anymore. He then drew from these images. This process was very creative and shows how you can look at one object in a range of ways.

Sam Read made clear the importance of working with other people in collaborations which is something I would like to do to better myself and have a lot of connections in the art world.