Artist Statement
Keith Lane
The
work, as they say, should speak for itself. However, words can offer at least some insight
into the underlying ruminations and possible ‘world view’ of the person who
made the work. Any sympathetic viewer
will then bring something interesting and personal to the dialogue between
artist and viewer. Indeed to complete the work with the layering of their own
experience and to make it part of their own world.
The show’s
title, In the Kingdom of Desire, refers to a land where the world of the
imagination and culture reigns supreme. This can also be seen as a layering of
history and place, and has been borrowed from a title for a recent ‘Peking
Opera’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’.
This forms an historical and cultural layering through time and space which
I am mindful of in my own work.
In the
world of words the titles attached to individual paintings are identifiers yes
but often when deemed appropriate aim to provide an emotional ‘key’ to the work
or a personal/historical reference.
So, this
show of recent work continues my ongoing preoccupation with the human body as
an intermediary between our inner experience of existing and the external
world. Our skin literally forms the
outer limits of ourselves and the beginning of the ‘other’. The skin being the membrane
between ourselves, the natural environment and our artifacts: our collective
culture.
My primary
contribution to the world of artifacts is in the traditional form of painting,
sometimes more literally; in the form of sculpture. These are either
representations of the body itself, depictions of sculptural ‘bodies’ or our outer
protective skin, that is, clothing. To be specific the representation of clothing,
when seen independently, can be interpreted as a de facto body, a shell or
ghost of the missing wearer.
These forms
are then overlain with and create a dialogue between various historical and
cultural signifiers such as tattoos, fabric and ceramic designs. We wear them
as markings of our visual cultural, metaphorically at least, much as a Leopard
wears its skin as an intrinsic part of its own identity.
To
borrow the term from Ellen Dissanayake, we have evolved into ‘Homo
Aestheticus’. The idea that Art in all its forms is not a ‘tack on’ to our
existence but has always been a critically nourishing and enabling element
central to our emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical survival.