A painting installation by Laura Lancaster consisting of 24 canvases - one for each frame of a cinefilm running for 1 second at 24 frames per second. A woman wearing a swimming costume and blue towel on her head turns to face the viewer, the painting is pink with abstract circles from the film. 

"This work consists of 24 canvasses and represents one second of found cine film footage (based on the frame rate of 24 frames per second). The intention of this work is to expand one second of recorded time across a monumentally scaled piece of work, allowing myself and the viewer to “go into” this potentially overlooked moment.  The reinterpretation of this moment through paint expands the meaning of this mundane home movie.

In telecommunications a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it, Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction.  This seemed fitting as my work deals with the translation and redistribution of lost images. Repetition is also a major component of the composition of this work.  Repetition within this work echoes the process of memory - the repeated shifting images are reminiscent of the act of trying to remember a past event  over and over again, like trying to keep a fading memory alive. The image which seems solid and tangible is actually shifting and morphing before our eyes.  

The canvasses were originally painted in one 4 x 6 grid but are to be shown in various combinations and configurations.  Rearrangement of the canvasses creates different “loops” of the film. In this way I can play with the rhythm of how the paintings are experienced. It seems pertinent in a social media saturated world to explore the ways in which we consume images and to use painting to slow down the viewing process and create a haptic experience.

Across the sequence the subject, a woman in a bathing costume on a beach, shifts awkwardly and turns to notice the viewer filming them.  This creates an interesting tension between the observer and the observed.  The sense of voyeurism its perhaps turned on its head when the viewer is met with the repeated gaze the woman depicted. This charged psychological encounter is something I explore through the paint handling, scale and format of my paintings. The subject’s pose and painterly treatment also touch on the depiction of the female form in art history, the reclined female figure, drapery and head-wear all place the woman depicted outside of the specifics of a particular place and time.  

The dots which dance across the canvasses are representations of holes in the actual film itself, indicating to the person projecting the film that the film is about to run out.  They provide an interesting opportunity to put the forces of abstraction and figuration into the same space in a new way for me - the physicality of images  (the paint and the film) as objects being a key interest of mine.  Both the dots and the paint are performing a similar act of obfuscation, the film and paint are transmitting and disrupting their message simultaneously."  

A large 24 panel painting by Laura Lancaster featuring frames from film stills. 

Exhibition Feature Image

Installation photographs of Laura Lancaster's exhibition 'My Echo, My Shadow' at Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland

Laura Lancaster

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Laura Lancaster

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