Cover image: Multi-Layered Existence (detail) 2013 acrylic on canvas 150 x 100cm $5000
slice
multi-layered urban spaces Opening: Saturday 1 November 2014 3 - 6pm, all welcome ICON White Gallery 1270 Moutere Highway Upper Moutere 2 - 26 November 2014
slice l multi-layered urban spaces Spaces of transition, such as subways, shopping malls and city streets dominate the urban landscape. These spaces of globalisation have been coined “non-places”. Non-places are generic, anonymous and transitory1. Chandler travels to research non-places, collect source material and to experience the sense of freedom and unknown that global cities offer. She employs the methodology of walking to understand the dynamics of how cities work, observing how people use and are directed through these spaces. Sometimes, Chandler is a ‘flaneur’, a solitary stroller, and at other times she uses the random strategy of the derive as a way of seeing. SLICE is a series of paintings that respond to the verticality of Singapore’s urban spaces. Singapore’s shopping malls are vast, shiny, maze-like and multi-leveled spaces that are easy to get lost in. The atriums within the malls are expansive with numerous escalators slicing across the voids, creating dynamic spaces that make the human form appear insignificant.
The main Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations are located within these malls or are linked to them via underground interchanges, and everyday the system transports 2.5 million people. The crowd escapes the daily commute by plugging into their phone, i-pad or
i-pod. This creates a horde of unresponsive people who are there in body, but not in mind
– akin to a zombie-like state. Depending on the time of day, the MRT and malls are either chaotically busy; or eerily quiet and empty, almost like the end of the world.
In the studio, Chandler employed the concept of ‘slice’, as not only a ‘slice of life’, but as
the verb ‘slice’ – to cut through, or form into layers or separate with spaces, to inform her compositions. On the canvas, multiple images are layered using transparent glazes to
shape, obliterate and reform figures and urban structures. The process of painting mimics the actual experience of the environment where spaces constantly change as people transition through them.
Chandler was in Singapore in 2013 on a residency at INSTINC Gallery, supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
1
See Marc Augé (1995), Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, Verso,
London: New York.
Multi-Layered Existence 2013 acrylic on canvas 150 x 100cm $5000
Towards a Better Life 2013-2014 acrylic on canvas 150 x 300cm $9500
WRU@ 2013 acrylic on canvas 200 x 100cm SOLD
LGS 2013-2014 acrylic on canvas 200 x 100cm $5000
If You Had Noticed 2014 acrylic on canvas 150 x 200cm SOLD
review The Icon White Gallery is a superb venue in which to experience the latest art works by
Lisa Chandler. Airy and bright it enables the canvases to be shown at their very best with
space to stand back and appreciate the complexity of thought, experience and technique that has gone into each one.
Chandler completed an artist residency in Singapore during 2013 and these works are a reflection of her experiences there, carefully observing the place of figures within the strong and defining architecture of urban landscapes.
Visiting this exhibition was very pleasurable for me, returning me to an urban world
of good memories, of being able to observe as a “no one” the complex life of the city dweller. There can be something breathtakingly sublime about being anonymous. It allows for multiple perspectives and Chandler has communicated this.
The title of this exhibition, Slice, refers to a ‘slice of life’, immediate observations of the ‘now’. Most of the figures are without faces. They are passive beings within and on
structures. I particularly like Chandler’s use of the escalator image to give a sense of
movement, of “going somewhere”. Very much a reflection of the technology generation,
many of the figures are self-engrossed, lightly inhabiting their space, often communing via
technology while being carried along regardless by the city infrastructure. It is fitting that the figures are in various states of exposure, some are just ghostly
images, some just the lightest suggestion. The colour palette is restrained which is a
great strength, allowing the focus to be on the concept. The marks Chandler makes are sublime. The textures and the rubbing back to expose the layers beneath give depth and richness. These works changed over time as she was creating them and it is an
inspiration that she has left the previous marks behind. The paintings become a diary of thoughts and events.
These are powerful works of a very high standard that an international market needs to see.
Adrienne Matthews Š Fairfax NZ News 16 November 2014
biography Lisa Chandler was born in the United Kingdom in 1969 and grew up in Wellington, New Zealand. Her art practice involves global wandering to experience places and spaces, punctuated by intense months of studio-based work.
Chandler’s practice reflects an obsession with transitional urban spaces and the crowds that inhabit them. Her paintings investigate the tensions between place and non-place. Urban structures and people intertwine through a process of layering, obliterating and tracing.
Chandler has a Master of Fine Arts (Hons) from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design,
Auckland, New Zealand. She presented her thesis paper ‘Negotiating the Non-Place’ at the Affective Landscapes Conference at the University of Derby, England in 2012.
In that same year she completed an art project at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In 2013 she undertook a residency in Singapore and in 2014, she spent two months on the Red Gate Residency in Beijing.
solo exhibitions
group exhibitions
2014 Slice III, Icon White Gallery Upper Moutere
2014 Instinc 10, Gallery 67, Singapore
2013 Slice II, LightSpace Gallery Wellington 2013 Slice I, Instinc Gallery, Singapore 2012 In Transit, Red Gallery, Nelson 2012 Negotiating the Non-Place Black Asterisk Gallery, Auckland 2009 Solo 28, Academy Galleries, Wellington
2014 World Art Fair, Songzhuang Museum, Beijing, China 2014 Finalist, Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award Whakatﾄ］e Museum 2013 Cruel City The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatﾅｫ, Nelson 2013 Finalist, Arts Gold Awards, Alexandra 2012 Art on Life Academy Galleries, Wellington 2012 Finalist, Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Awards, Whakatﾄ］e Museum 2009 Aqua Marine The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatﾅｫ, Nelson 2007 Winner, Landscape/Seascape Award Regional Art Awards, Nelson
r e v i e w s & a r t i c les A Slice of Life in Exhibition November 2014 Adrienne Matthews, The Nelson Mail Slice June 2013 Fann ZJ, Singapore Mapua Artist to Show Art Practice Overseas April 2012 Anna Pearson, The Nelson Mail
artist talks 2013
LightSpace Gallery, Wellington
2013
Art Week Auckland
2013
The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū, Nelson
2013
Instinc Gallery, Singapore
2013
Pecha Kucha, Singapore
2012
‘Affective Landscapes’ Conference University of Derby, England Presented a paper
2012
Red Gallery, Nelson
2011
Pecha Kucha, Nelson
residencies 2014
Collaboration Project Singapore supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation
2014 Red Gate Residency Beijing, China 2013
Instinc Gallery Residency Singapore supported by the Asia New Zealand Foundation
www.lisachandler.co.nz