Lisa Milroy, from Slade School of Fine Art, University College of London, UK has presented her personal journey through painting and her treatment with still life in artworks at a lecture session held at the Lecture Theatre of the faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Dhaka on Tuesday.
Lisa Milroy in her lecture demonstrated change of her theme. Giving references of some of her great works, the painter, indeed, narrated the backgrounds of her remarkable works.
The faculty of Fine Arts and Slade School of Fine Art incorporation with the British Council have jointly organised Milroy’s visit to Bangladesh. The seminar was also attended by artist Lala Rukh Selim, associate professor of the sculpture department of the faculty.
Milroy in her lecture described that she took ‘Still Life’ project as her painting inspiration in the 1980s. She informed that her paintings of that time had depicted collections of ordinary objects such as shoes, plates, rocks, stamps, fans, hardware, light bulbs in either in grid or randomly scattered against an off-white ground done either by oil or acrylic on fabric.
According to Milroy, her interest of painting ‘The Scenes of Life’ had motivated her to paint postal stamps and Japanese urns as life scenes are painted on both the things.
She in her lecture also informed that in the early 90s, her interest shifted to ‘Slowness of Time’ when she visited Kyoto in Japan. To capture the notion of slowness, she began to paint old buildings.
She also revealed that she began concerned with ‘People’ in 1996/97. She used to paint those people who were waiting for someone as waiting related to some sorts of stillness.
Milroy went on saying that she started to explore stories of people through her paintings in1999. At that time she drew a painting titled ‘A Day at The Studio’, where she drew her routine works at her studio from morning to night in small images.
Milroy became keen with drawing large scale artworks in 2005. She drew a 22 meter-long painting, which begins with darkness from left and continues to brightness to the right portraying a chair at in front of a mirror of her studio. ‘It took one year to draw the painting,’ she said.
As per Milroy, at the end of the 2000s, she got concerned with the relationship between ‘Looking at a Painting and Making a Painting.’ She drew theatre auditoriums from different angles to understand the relationship.
Lisa Milroy (born 1959 in Vancouver) is a Canadian painter who lives and works in the UK. She studied at University of London and launched her first solo exhibition was in 1984. She also held solo exhibitions throughout Europe, the USA and Japan. Milroy won John Moores award for her artistic endeavors.
Courtesy of New Age
