It was all abstract and conceptual art when I attended university. My teachers told me that figurative art went 'out' in the Middle Ages and that I should express myself using form and shapes, but splashes on canvas and rocks on the floor bored me. I knew what I wanted: I wanted to create something no one had ever seen before, something that was brewing in the back of my brain. I used to sit for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling, Van Eyck, Goya and Rembrandt. The photographer, Diane Arbus, was another of my inspirations. Her use of black and white hit me at the core of my being. Black and white is the color of ancient photographs and old TV shows … it is the color of ghosts, longing, time passing, memory, and madness. Black and white ached. I realized that it was perfect for the imagery in my work.
– LL
Laurie Lipton lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
Selected Recent Exhibitions: 2010 – Weapons of Mass Delusions, Cal State Fullerton Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, California; solo exhibition, CoproGallery, Santa Monica, California; Lowbrow Tarot Cards, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, California; Machine Punk, La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, California; 400 Women, Shoreditch Hall, London, United Kingdom. 2009 – The Sleep of Reason, Galerie T40, Dusseldorf, Germany; Pulse Art Fair, New York, New York; The Extraordinary Drawings of Laurie Lipton, Contemporary Urban Art Centre, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Bitch
pencil on paper, 29"×20"
The Dead Factory
charcoal and pencil on paper, 32 3/5"×53"
Death and the Maiden
pencil on paper, 17"×13.5"
The Fourth Horsie of the Apocalypse
1986, pencil on paper, 13"×10.5"
Leashed Passion
1996, pencil, 28"×39"
Love Bite
2002, charcoal and pencil, 54"×38"
ON
charcoal and pencil on paper, 32"×41"
Pandora's Box
2011, charcoal and pencil on paper, 39"×28"
Señorita Muerte
pencil on paper, 23"×16"