| Project title: | An Embodied Sense of Liminality |
| Location: | LSA Art Room Gallery, Leamington Spa // SPRING Cheltenham Gallery, Cheltenham |
| Date(s): | 1 – 7th July // 31st July – 6th August 2024 |
Artist Statement
Maddie is a contemporary fine artist based in Warwickshire with a career history rooted within Arts Education. Having successfully managed a community Art Gallery in Leamington Spa town centre for the last 2 years alongside her MA, Maddie has now set up her own not-for-profit CIC – Lighthaus Arts. She is currently working on a research and development project commissioned and funded by Warwickshire District Council looking into the feasibility of a large multi functional art space currently being built in South Leamington.
Maddie’s focus for her recent Masters in Fine Art Final Major Project work has evolved into a deep dive focus of how middle-aged women can feel like they are disappearing within society. “You could say that I was no longer somebody, but I was also becoming a person with no body.” Her liberating experiences during a month-long International Artist Residency in Lisbon for the month of April 2024 offered the challenge of removing herself from ordinary life into a pivotal opportunity for challenge, reflection, and change – from feeling invisible to becoming visible all at once.
Contextual Statement
My paintings hinge on just-aboutness; liminal and perceptible shapes: just-about states of mind that swing between figurative, non-figurative, blurring of image, motion, indeterminacy, ambiguity; held within liminality, oscillating between one thing and another. My artistic style is suggestive of the intensity of colour field painting with a suggestion of Abstract Expressionism. My work has its own story and becomes its own energy. Layers of coloured glazes create a depth of field that replicates the luminosity of peripheral layers of liminality. Fluctuating areas of colour and bodies of paint are expanded and foregrounded, displaying a freedom of movement. Ambiguity invites the viewer to speculate, to create meaning playfully offering a counterpoint to disappearing, and of simultaneously becoming hyper-visible.
Artistically my goals are to explore the interplay between my body, liminality, landscape, presence, and mark making. I work intuitively, using gestural mark-making and colour to express myself. Approaching each work as an individual exploration; intertwining experiences and narrative by inviting the viewer to contemplate the beauty of the transient. Each brushstroke and gestural mark serves as a testament to the impermanence of existence, creating a dialogue between my external environment and inner self. I draw upon artistic influence and inspiration from artists Helen Frankenthaler and Gerhard Richter with their embodied actioned painting techniques in addition to Tal Regrev’s use of conceptualising the body as a porous vessel and Bo Compton’s approaches of colour field painting.
About the project
My Final Major Project encapsulates an International Artistic Residency in Lisbon in collaboration with Portuguese artist and mentor Clo Bougard, a series of developmental and experimental works and a final body of 18 works. The public facing elements consist of 2 exhibitions: a collaborative exhibition in Leamington Spa with 7 fellow MA final year colleagues and a second, more formal exhibition at Spring Gallery in Cheltenham. In addition, I also produced a printed visual diary book detailing my works and scores from my artistic residency in Lisbon and a printed catalogue of final major projects works. My project hinges on these following questions –
How can a practice of drawing and painting explore the liminality of being a middle-aged woman?
&
How can landscape painting to explore ideas of embodiment within the landscape?
Using the concept of embodied liminality to reach into myself as a focus; being both a middle-aged woman and a contemporary artist I experience what it is to become disappearing. On a threshold point; not yet old but not young either. I explore feelings of losing myself: whilst all at once wanting to be seen. By an embodied sense of liminality, I mean a layer deeper than simply physically my body; an understanding of an emotional and sensory self in a multifaceted, multi sensory way. I draw upon Lisa Blackman’s theories to explore an embodied situatedness within the landscape and how my body develops its own language through practice-based research.
Project Documentation – Final Body of works
‘Interperceptable’ Oil on linen, 100cm x 100cm, June 2024.
’Freedom beyond Parameters’ & ‘Just About-ness’, Oil on linen, 61cm x 76cm, April 2024.
’Fleeting Moment’, ‘Fluctuating’ & ‘Ambiguity’, Oil on linen, 40cm x 51cm, June 2024.
’In between Worlds’, Oil on linen, 100cm x 100cm, June 2024.
‘Sensory Threshold’, ‘Phasing Out’ & ‘Transitioning’, Oil on linen, 30cm x 30cm, June 2024.
’Fragmentations’ & ‘Liquidity’, Oil on linen, 60cm x 60cm, June 2024.
‘Indistinct’, ‘Unseen’ & ‘Faintly’, Oil on linen paper, 25cm x 35cm, June 2024.
’Obscuring’, Oil on linen paper, 25cm x 35cm, June 2024.
Artistic Residency – Lisbon April 2024
My experiences during the International Artist Residency offered the challenge of being removed from my ordinary life and its familiarities into a pivotal opportunity for challenge, reflection, and change. I painted every day, en plein air exploring and connecting with the landscape – embracing each moment as a new experience. The use of scores was first discussed with my MA tutor on the first week of my residency when I was feeling unsettled and yet to find my feet. After researching Yoko Ono’s use of scores in ‘Grapefruit’, I decided to set myself motivational aims as ‘scores’ every day to ensure I was drawing out the most from the residency journey. The scores were aims, not set in stone and I was relaxed if I did not achieve them. However, my non-negotiables were to walk 10K every day, swim in the sea every other day and to smile at strangers.
Upon return to home and to my art studio reflecting on the residency I began to realise how significantly it had impacted me; not so much about what I created but the overall experience and effect it had on me; physically, emotionally and spiritually. I felt liberated, recharged even. I swam every day in the sea, ate fresh fish, chatted to strangers, took myself off on adventures and returned home feeling the best I had in a long time. My menopausal middle-aged body and mind felt reset and alive.
To capture my residency experiences, I created a published book with all 50 works in progress; experiments, sketches, and paintings from the Artistic Residency in Portugal. This book was also a Final Outcome which was exhibited and for sale alongside my body of works in both the Leamington and Cheltenham exhibitions with the accompanying catalogue of final works.
’Freedom Scores’ – Lisbon Artistic residency book, collection of 50 sketches, paintings & WIP’s from Lisbon, April 2024.
Public Facing Outcome – Exhibition 1
‘Falmouth MA x LSA Art Room’ Exhibition, Leamington Spa, collaborative group exhibition, 1st – 7th July 2024.
Audience Encounters, ‘FalmouthMA x LSA Art Room’ Exhibition, collaborative group Exhibition, 1st – 7th July 2024.
Audience Encounters, ‘FalmouthMA x LSA Art Room’ Exhibition, collaborative group Exhibition, 1st – 7th July 2024.
Public Facing Outcome – Exhibition 2
“Elemental’, Spring Cheltenham Exhibition, Cheltenham Spa, 31st July – 6th August 2024.
’Freedom beyond Parameters’ & ‘Just about-ness’, oil on linen framed in white oak, SPRING Cheltenham Exhibition.
’Faintly’ & ‘Unseen’, oil on linen paper, mounted & framed in grey oak. SPRING Cheltenham Exhibition.
’In between worlds’, oil on linen, 100cm x 100cm, SPRING Cheltenham Exhibition.
“Elemental’, Spring Cheltenham Exhibition walk through, Cheltenham Spa, 31st July – 6th August 2024.
For more information please contact:
IG: http://Instagram.com/maddiewebbart
email: maddie@maddiewebbart.com
Next Project: https://lighthausarts.com