Lauren Miller

Artist Statement

In my final year at university, I set out to fully combine together my two very different ways of working, in hopes of creating one: cohesive, dynamic and harmonious image. That shows off a broad range of medium usage and varying application skills. However, this came with many difficult challenges and proved a rather daunting task. In this document, I’m going to be explaining further, the different problems I faced and how I was able to move past them, to finally achieve my third-year goal.

Towards the beginning of the year, I mainly focused on my portraiture, trying to create paintings that solely focused on the subject. I quickly started to feel that something was missing, I didn’t know how else to cover up the blank spaces in the paintings, that would surround the figure. It started to stress me out and after a while, I would take a break from the current painting, and resort back to using texture paste and oil stains, to create more ‘fun’ and ‘stress-free’ pieces.

I really enjoy working with more looser mediums such as texture paste and melted down oil paint. It allows me to sort of, stand back and watch the painting make itself, as everything is constantly moving until it finally dries. Having said that, I do tend to miss the amounts of detail and overall quality I can achieve in using oil paint for a portrait. This began to be an on-going battle in my head, not sure which way to direct my practice, as I was finding issues in both separately.

After speaking with tutors, I decided to take a step back from my practice, to devote most of my time to absorbing/researching as much creative information as possible. Trying to look at all types of practioners, in hopes of finding common interests and aesthetics, to reignite enthusiasm for my work and hopefully finding a way of combining these two styles, that I love both equally.

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Gallery

Here's a collection of different works that I've made throughout my time at university. Ranging from process paintings, wall murals and sketchbook works.