About

This May, Surface Gallery welcomes back Louise Lahive, winner of last year’s open, Reflection: Contemporary Portraiture, and her solo exhibition, Process of Ending.

Lahive was selected from more than 300 submissions from artists around the world for last year’s contemporary portraiture open, Reflection, after submitting a ‘portrait’ depicting an MRI scan of her hips. She was subsequently awarded the best in show prize, a solo exhibition at Surface Gallery. Regardless of subject matter, Lahive’s oeuvre is characterised by her use of bright colours and striking pattern. Working primarily with oil paint, she often builds up layers that produce a cracked texture or adds objects such as seeds.

Process of Ending starts with the theme of ancestry and death as process (as opposed to thinking about ourselves as beginning and ending). Lahive begins with images of her father’s ashes taken with a scanning electron microscope and then shows the development of these images into paintings that reference middle age altarpieces. The work then grows to incorporate the early ‘scientific’ image of Vitruvian Man, an old idea that attempts to order the human body into a fixed design. The work ends with the body as process and the final images show us as unfixed, in half-human, half-animal form, striving to explore the original purpose of art, which is to connect us to the larger process of which we are a part.

Artist Talk
Saturday 4th May, 12pm and 2pm
Lahive will talk about her diverse body of work which includes photos, paintings, drawings and mixed-media pieces. She will address how the work has been developed over the course of a year through studio practice and research. Beginning with images of her father’s ashes, the artist will discuss how these images developed into paintings which consider the scientific alongside the spiritual and presents the body as process and unfixed.
These talks are informal and there will be time for questions throughout the tour.

Process of Ending will open in the Main Gallery in conjunction with Decade, a group exhibition by 3rd Space Studios, which will take place in the Project Space. As always, there will be a donations bar with ales from local brewery, Pheasentry.

Free Entry: Everyone Welcome

Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

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