Lauren White
University: Bath Spa University
Graduation Year: 2021
New Blood Art Commentary
What’s to stop a jaguar lying across a bed as two women get ready? Only the rules of reality, and those are not the rules of art. Lauren White’s vignettes slice between the quotidian and the mystical. Like Andrew Wyth’s paintings, they hover between naturalism and a more magical variety – but the subject here is more youthful, the palette fresher, the application of paint blended and soft. ‘Favourite Spatula’ definitively tips more toward the surreal. It’s tongue in cheek, it’s relatable - and it’s lifting off to stranger realms on the background’s vivid red, also note the faint symbol of a lizard perched on a shoulder.
‘Watching Hair Dry’ is more subtle, yet the same atmosphere is present: that within or around the ordinary daily rituals a more miraculous experience is occurring. The scene in ‘New Day’ takes place in a forest, ship, and dream as well as a bathroom; the central character slips between all of them, and the the resplendent shading of velvet blue gives the sense of surfacing from the depths. There is a luminosity to the colours in use here. They surge. As either mirror or portal, these paintings draw us in.
Artist Statement
The small, monotonous tasks and routines in daily life have directly inspired my practice over the last year. During lockdown, many of us were in a position where we needed to look to the smaller moments in life to find appreciation and gratitude, thus these mundanities were given a new sense of importance and purpose.
My work seeks to highlight the dream-like and ethereal elements to the everyday, and present these activities as other worldly, placing a significance on the elements of life which are often overlooked. By using strange, unlikely, and sometimes romantic imagery, the mundane is propelled into an alternate and whimsical reality.
Albert Camus’ philosophy of absurdism has been a key research point within my practice. Camus argues that there is no reason for existence, that life and society is meaningless, and the way that we live life feels strange, chaotic, and absurd. As much as we try to have order and rationality, life itself is chaotic by nature. Recently I have been using this chaos and absurdity to demonstrate a blurring between the ordinary and the extraordinary, allowing the two to coexist and demonstrate how existence exhibits aspects of both in the everyday. Consequently, I have begun to explore components of surrealism and magical realism, with a focus on depicting illogical subject matter that holds little relation to one another.
My painting techniques imply a dreamy and atmospheric dynamic to the work, using soft marks to inflict a sense of haziness to the scene. Additionally, there is influence from baroque artwork with regards to implementing theatrics and drama, which further implies bizarre themes and spectacular narratives.
My practice works to make sense of the world by using the nonsensical, encouraging the viewer to engage with different ways of thinking, and altering perspectives of what we thought we knew.
Group Exhibitions
(2021) Unlocked: Art Expo, 44AD, Bath
(2021) 168 Annual Open Exhibition RWA, Royal West of England Acadamy, Bristol
(2021) MA Degree Show, Bath Spa, Bath
(2020) No Show, Bath Spa, Bath