ANGELA LIZON
A SENSE OF PLACE
27th November - 12th December 2021
Electro Studios Project Space
St Leonards on Sea
Responding to the title, A Sense of Place, this mixed group show explores themes of family, heritage, migration, displacement, identity, nostalgia, memory and loss through paintings, drawings, sculpture, installation and mixed media.
My work explores ideas and subject matter often taboo in art, such as the sentimental, the cute and the nice. The painting style transforms and elevates the original throwaway kitsch image so it cannot be dismissed as merely ‘bad painting’. The subject matter is simple, strong and ‘in your face’. These subverted clichés confront us with our ideas of what is considered ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste and question our cultural standpoint – the gap between the art world and the creativity of everyone else – “My taste is better than yours”.
I work on a variety of ideas at any time which cross influence and inform each other, moving between themes and scales, working from photographs that I collage and manipulate on the computer.
I am interested in kitsch and ideas of cultural status as portrayed in the history of Fine Art painting, status symbols exemplified by Stubbs' horses. I use cheap ornaments and imperfect snapshots, repositioning these items within the context of the "Fine Art" world, painting them in oils, converting cheap items to visions of worth and value. Making use of kitsch is not the same as making kitsch. By subverting clichés and removing them from their original disposable status glorifies and immortalises the subject and at the same time can render it disturbing in its absurdity.
The ornaments I use are bought cheaply from charity shops and car boot sales, never for more than a couple of pounds. I search for the pathos or sentimentality within an ornament, finding intrinsic value and worth within discarded and unvalued objects, plus something a little off-key. The ornaments have their own mystery and narrative. Who made it and for whom? Did the creator believe in its artistic value? Who originally bought it? Who threw it out to be finally valued for so little? A history of taste is contained within these little ornaments.
Also related to these concerns with "throwaways" is the more recent work with old photographs bought cheaply from anonymous sources on eBay - the faded, blurred, damaged and indistinct ones. These can have beautiful unplanned qualities. Painting these images renders them, and the unknown people within them, universal and eternal. Another series featuring in this exhibition is her 'Fake Family Tree' series exploring and honouring her Polish heritage.
Her work with the butterfly men was brought about by disgust at the macho posturing of some of our current world leaders. This coincided with the finding of some old photographs of body builders. The addition of the wings neutralises the original intention of the pose.
Angela’s work plays with images that have their roots in the disposable kitsch culture of her childhood – an era of knitted swimming costumes, doilies, figurines and plastic flowers. She takes various components from photographs and objects, removes them from their original cosy surroundings, then merges and reforms them with a new emphasis on their peculiarities. Although the final paintings contain a large dose of mockery, the scale and the technique of Angela’s paintings celebrate and elevate a culture that has often been dismissed as inferior.
Read more about A Sense of Place here
EXHIBITION ARTWORKS: RECENT WORK
FAKE FAMILY TREE SERIES
This series of paintings began after having a DNA test which threw up some unexpected results. I have drawn on this heritage and the little I know of it, and am filling in the gaps, expanding the unknown. The resulting paintings draw on religious iconography, fairy tales, national costume, and local flora and fauna.
Although I am drawing on reality, I am also trying to capture something more internal, a feeling of the stories I heard growing up in J 960s/'70s Wembley; stories of my family and of the exotic romance of pre-war Poland. It was a childhood peppered with occasional visits from relatives (none of whom I could understand), vodka drinking, accordian playing; death notices with photos of unnamed relatives laid out in their coffins; gifts of Polish glass, embroidered linen, painted eggs, a polish costume, a bag of goose feathers for a wedding pillow; stories of forests with wolves and bears; being taught the National Anthem.
In 1986/87, I was lucky enough to study in Krakow for a year and to get a small taste of the Poland my father knew. Parts of the countryside seemed to be untouched by modem agriculture. Fields were full of wild flowers, ploughed by horses; shepherds dressed in national costume; an elderly lady with a yoke around her neck and geese al her feet; horses and carts the normal transport; religious superstition. However, much of what I found in Poland did not match up to my father's stories. Poland was a country that had suffered greatly during the war and then continued to suffer under communism and life was very harsh and difficult for most people. To some extent I was greatly disillusioned.
My reality was not actuality. It contained truths but also myths and images filtered through my father and further revised and embellished by my childish imagination and understanding.
Ersatz history.
This series of paintings began after having a DNA test which threw up some unexpected results. I have drawn on this heritage and the little I know of it, and am filling in the gaps, expanding the unknown. The resulting paintings draw on religious iconography, fairy tales, national costume, and local flora and fauna.
Although I am drawing on reality, I am also trying to capture something more internal, a feeling of the stories I heard growing up in J 960s/'70s Wembley; stories of my family and of the exotic romance of pre-war Poland. It was a childhood peppered with occasional visits from relatives (none of whom I could understand), vodka drinking, accordian playing; death notices with photos of unnamed relatives laid out in their coffins; gifts of Polish glass, embroidered linen, painted eggs, a polish costume, a bag of goose feathers for a wedding pillow; stories of forests with wolves and bears; being taught the National Anthem.
In 1986/87, I was lucky enough to study in Krakow for a year and to get a small taste of the Poland my father knew. Parts of the countryside seemed to be untouched by modem agriculture. Fields were full of wild flowers, ploughed by horses; shepherds dressed in national costume; an elderly lady with a yoke around her neck and geese al her feet; horses and carts the normal transport; religious superstition. However, much of what I found in Poland did not match up to my father's stories. Poland was a country that had suffered greatly during the war and then continued to suffer under communism and life was very harsh and difficult for most people. To some extent I was greatly disillusioned.
My reality was not actuality. It contained truths but also myths and images filtered through my father and further revised and embellished by my childish imagination and understanding.
Ersatz history.
WHO DO I THINK I AM? BACKGROUND INFORMATION
My father and grandfather were Polish but I have no knowledge of family any further back than that, other than that the real family name is Nieweglowski (pronounced Neeyeh-ven-gwovski). The part of Poland where my father grew up is now a part of the Ukraine. During World War II it was invaded twice, first by the Russians and then by the Germans. His family had to flee from his birthplace (Kostopol) because of massacres committed by the Ukrainians on the Polish population. When the Germans invaded they took my father as a slave labourer, and he eventually ended up in Norway in the Arctic Circle. He came to this country as a displaced person in 1948. His family had to leave their home in the Ukraine when the Russians took over, and they moved to the new part of Poland in the west which was formerly part of Germany. They took with them only what they could carry, part of which included 4 glass vases made by my grandfather, 3 of my father’s school exercise books, and his First Communion certificate. I suppose they carried what they could of his belongings as they did not know where he was or if he was still alive.
When I received the DNA results, I started looking at images of ancestral places and came across a photo of some cossacks from Kazakhstan, one of whom was the spitting image of my grandfather. I also went on Google Maps to look at areas where they had lived and, using Street View, took a walk down the roads, walked past the church where my father made his First Communion, walked down forest roads and peered in to the trees wondering if that was where my father had witnessed a wartime massacre. Ironically, during the war, my father suffered persecution from both the nazis and the Ukrainians for being outwardly Polish. Yet the DNA results show that he shared common origins with his persecutors.
My father and grandfather were Polish but I have no knowledge of family any further back than that, other than that the real family name is Nieweglowski (pronounced Neeyeh-ven-gwovski). The part of Poland where my father grew up is now a part of the Ukraine. During World War II it was invaded twice, first by the Russians and then by the Germans. His family had to flee from his birthplace (Kostopol) because of massacres committed by the Ukrainians on the Polish population. When the Germans invaded they took my father as a slave labourer, and he eventually ended up in Norway in the Arctic Circle. He came to this country as a displaced person in 1948. His family had to leave their home in the Ukraine when the Russians took over, and they moved to the new part of Poland in the west which was formerly part of Germany. They took with them only what they could carry, part of which included 4 glass vases made by my grandfather, 3 of my father’s school exercise books, and his First Communion certificate. I suppose they carried what they could of his belongings as they did not know where he was or if he was still alive.
When I received the DNA results, I started looking at images of ancestral places and came across a photo of some cossacks from Kazakhstan, one of whom was the spitting image of my grandfather. I also went on Google Maps to look at areas where they had lived and, using Street View, took a walk down the roads, walked past the church where my father made his First Communion, walked down forest roads and peered in to the trees wondering if that was where my father had witnessed a wartime massacre. Ironically, during the war, my father suffered persecution from both the nazis and the Ukrainians for being outwardly Polish. Yet the DNA results show that he shared common origins with his persecutors.
Read more about the artist here
EXHIBITION INSTALL PHOTOS
