micro-narratives, Temptation of Small Realities

At first glance Lancaster's work sits

firmly within a tradition of figurative

painting, portraiture and expressionism.

Bleeding into their surrounding scene,

often divorced from their identity through

a splodge or smudge, her subjects maintain

a slippery anonymity. However Lancaster's

strategy undermines the historical

baggage of it's genre. Found in unwanted

photographs and discarded cine film from

second hand thrift store markets or junk

shops, her subject matter is gleaned from

other peoples lost or abandoned memories.

Lancaster's work inhabits the fleeting

moment of the holiday snap or the passport

photo. The intimacy of her small paintings

and drawings is compounded by the distance

of her process, her subject matter

and method owing as much to the tactics

of minimalism as to tradition.

".. Laura Lancaster] performs acts of rescue

that are tender and cruel in equal measure

by making paintings from the images

they contain. Lancaster knows when she

has found an image that has touched her:

something touched with an odd banality,

or ambiguity, or sorrow. She collects

dreams of escape...

MOIRA JEFFERY

Extract from the essay,

"What it Takes to Keep a Young Girl Alive",

included in the Workplace, published by Art

Editions North, 2004.