JOSHUA TREE, CALIFORNIA
Anne-Louise Ewen's unique process of painting on Lucite has been evolving for over 20 years. Her first Lucite painting was a serendipitous by-product of monotype printmaking: The clear plastic plate on which she painted the images that were then transfered onto paper via the printing press took on its own multi-layered beauty, so she set it aside and started to collect the used plates. Ewen further refined the process years later while collaborating with a Lucite furniture manufacturer, when, as most artists would be, she was eager to make creative use of the leftover Lucite "scraps" that were available in abundance.
Lucite Painting Series | The Exquisite Realization of Health
Building on the techniques she invented to create the "Patina" Series, Ewen created a whole new series of abstract paintings on Lucite that emanate life and light.
The name of the series, and the titles of all of the paintings, are taken from Walt Whitman poems-- which Ewen was reminded of while she worked on these paintings-- Particularly the poem "I Sing The Body Electric."
The paintings literally have an "organic" quality, in that they make one think of bodily organs and natural living things. They are presented, not with morbidity, but with reverence and awe. The gold leaf invites the viewer to an experience of the sacred. These works meld the very modern with the timeless.
The creation of the larger works in this series was sponsored by LuciteLux/Lucite International.
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Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sun-burnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels, when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers, the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you, or within me—the bones, and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say, these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, but of the Soul,
O I say now these are the Soul!
From I Sing The Body Electric by Walt Whitman
Lucite Painting Series | The Beauty of Invisible Things
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Lucite Painting Series | Patina
Abstract paintings made with powdered minerals and other pigments, precious metals and other mixed media on clear plastic (Lucite).
Inspired by natural rock formations and cave paintings.
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