ARTISTS / LORNA GREAR

Profile

It has been said that a new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture. Lornas new work translates this chaotic universalism in latest collection of work. Pieces such as Puzzle Pictures, New World Order Maps and Automated Cutouts carefully critique our lived experience. Pirates, blue dogs, trucks and snakes have been used in the Puzzle Pictures as homage to childs play; the toy is given symbolic significance as the next layer in a series of paintings initiated years ago. Lornas paintings involve a personal history incorporating disparate styles, conflicting ideologies and academic references. Underlying layers utilize the grid, the found circle and text. In Lornas iconography the grid references academia, the found circle- movement and text being the language in a childs life. Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication. In the New World Order Maps, the silhouette of the found object is obscured to make abstract shapes. These paintings reclaim the clich title of a new world order suggesting world maps, abstract thought and visual puzzles. The third body of work is a nod to the readymade. Paraphernalia is gathered from Mac Books, cardboard packaging and left over stencils from 3D assembly toys. Lorna makes aesthetic objects out of stuff we usually throw away keeping in mind art histories such as minimalism and constructivism. The final works are generated as summaries of earlier paintings. They also act as a departure from the use of discarded toys as the silhouette to the use of silhouettes found in iconic paintings from the 19th century. These paintings tease out ideas of world change through revolution and discovery. They offer a contradictory image; on one hand an objective political understanding of power and on the other; a spiritual independence from rationality. The idea of liberty is flirted with in this final body of work. Although disparate, these works seemingly relate through a complex understanding of narratives. The discarded object, childs play, ideas of liberty and the use of the found image build an image of a globalised state of culture. The debris from society, the forgotten images from art history and the use of amusement objects are used in paintings to construct convoluted spaces and intricate patterns; they invoke a multiplicity of meaning. Lornas work is as much a metaphor for our collective contemporary psyche as they are journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe.

Lorna has held numerous solo shows including at the infamous Tailor Room Gallery, Sydney between 1998 - 2003 and Peloton in 2005 and 2009. Other galleries include Phatspace, Herringbone Gallery, Imperial Slacks, Zitlip and First Draft. She is a graduate of Sydney College of the Arts and The National Art School. Her work has been hung in The Portia Geach Memorial Prize,The Fishers Ghost Award, The Mosman Art Prize and Liverpool Art Prize. Before this her time was spent in London initiating community arts groups; namely 'The Dolehouse Collective' and Scarecrow Tiggy - an artist run co-operative in Camberwell. Lorna currently teaches art history and painting at South Western Sydney Institute of TAFE and is in the middle of curating an exhibition titled 'The Baker's Dozen' for UTS Gallery in 2012.