Queering the Figure with Laura Lewis

Laura Lewis is a queer visual artist originally from Chibuktuk, also known as Halifax, nova Scotia. Currently based in Treaty One Territory in Winnipeg, manitoba. Her conceptual figurative painting practice explores philosophical questions concerning psychosexuality, the multiplicities of the self and the nuances of the human condition. I found Laura's work about a year ago and I was immediately drawn to it. The care and creativity that Laura takes when approaching her work makes her paintings absolutely mesmerizing, and not to mention the explosive color palette that she uses and the way that she poses her subjects in such new and exciting ways. Laura's command of not only the figure, but of art history makes for totally compelling work that I just lose myself in whenever I see her paintings.

Lewis graduated in 2018 with a combined degree from NASCAD and the School of Art at the University of Manitoba in the BFA Honors Program. She's the founder and facilitator of Critical Painting Perspectives presented by Mentoring Artists for Women's Art. She participated in artist residencies at the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity and at the Civite Castellana in Italy. She was featured in the 2023 painting issues of Border Crossings magazine and has several upcoming exhibitions across Canada, including at PluginICA, modern Fuel, ace Art Inc. And Gallery 1CO3 at the University of Winnipeg, laura, welcome to the Art-O-Log.

Hi, thanks for having me, Madison.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

So I've been drawing my entire life.

Basically Around the age of 14 or 15, my parents bought me a set of acrylic paints, an easel and a canvas for Christmas and I hid away in my room and painted for several months and finally ended up unveiling this portrait that I was working on to them, and they were pretty stunned by it and immediately enrolled me into art classes. I then began taking figurative drawing at NASCAD the evenings and weekends when I was like 16 or 17 and I also at that time was in very competitive soccer. I grew up as an athlete, I was a soccer goalie and yeah. So what ended up happening is I got a full scholarship to York University when I was 18. I got scouted at a tournament in Toronto and ended up moving to Toronto at that age and they wouldn't actually let me enroll in the art program while I was on the soccer team. They thought it was too much commitment from both faculties. So I had to put that artistic kind of creativity away for a bit and focus on soccer, and I ended up getting an injury.

I tore my quad and I was written off for the season. And I decided to drop out and go back to art school and go to NASCAD, because I just felt very out of place and I knew that was the trajectory I wanted to embark on. And, yeah, I ended up finishing my degree at the U of M in 2018. And I never looked back.

This one's kind of off script, but I'm wondering did being an athlete make you a better artist, or vice versa?

Oh my gosh, that's a good question. I think that it's really. I am very competitive and I think I take that competitive nature to being an artist. I do believe in collaborating and supporting, but I think I'm competitive with myself in a way, like I push myself a lot and I think, having that being an athlete, there's a lot of strict practice and and intensity, I guess a lot of intensity, and I think that I bring that practice and intensity, I guess a lot of intensity, and I think that I bring that practice and intensity to my art practice and it informs it in a way that I feel is unknown, but it's definitely exists there for sure.

How would you describe your paintings.

I describe my paintings as bold, gestural, immersive, queer, large-scale figurative oil paintings, loose brushwork, saturated colors and detailed features. Capturing a person's essence is very critical to my practice, yeah.

From start to finish. What's your process like?

So I capture my material through a mixture of digital and film photography and everyone featured in my work are friends and fellow artists, so the photo shoots become really collaborative. The featured individuals select their clothing or lack thereof. So if you see any nudity in my work, it's always the person's choice and we usually decide on a pose together through trial and error. I usually take up to 200, 300 photographs during a session and then I go through the material, decide what images might make a good painting, and that can be a tricky process in itself. Often something like an image that makes a good photograph won't necessarily turn out as a good painting. So having that evaluation process is really critical.

After that I start a series of sketches, studies and tests, watercolors, different pieces. I often I'll get canvas paper and I'll do different components of the painting so I can figure out someone's hands or a complicated garment or foreshortened arm or something like that, and to figure out the color palettes and composition and overall aesthetic of the piece. So there's a lot of kind of process involved before I get to the actual painting itself. And it's what's super challenging painting at such a large scale, and I want to make sure it turns out correctly. So once I have all of that figured out which does take quite a long time I approach the large canvas.

Can you tell me a bit about your views on painting and why it continues to stay relevant?

I think that painting will continue to stay relevant as long as people are challenging perspectives and the historical canon. Contemporary artists are constantly pushing the boundaries of painting. Traditionally marginalized people are creating work from new perspectives. I always think of Amy Sherald, Kent Monkman, Jordan Castile. These artists are making work that challenge antiquated narratives and therefore are absolutely critical to contemporary conversation.

What does it mean to paint the body in the 21st century?

That's a good question. I view my work to be in conversation with historical painters and my influences, such as Alice Neel, jenny Saville, bacon de Kooning, like very historical influences as well, and I think it's important to come from a place of knowing in order to create something new. And, that being said, I also want my work to be a departure from tradition and contribute to the contemporary world through different perspectives in painting. So I think, painting the body in the 21st century, you need to approach it with a new lens for sure first century.

You need to approach it with a new lens, for sure. I'd love to talk a bit more about how you insert queerness into your work. Do you choose to make something queer, or does it just happen?

Yeah, it's definitely intentional. I think queering the figure can be obvious or it can be nuanced. For an example, rendering a visibly queer couple engaging in an act of intimacy could be a more obvious way of communicating queerness. I personally enjoy a more nuanced approach, rendering figures in solitude with hints of queerness, such as garments, kink wear, fashion. I think there are different cues that can be hit. That nod to that and I'm more interested in that ambiguity.

So you just finished a residency in Banff. Can you tell us a bit more about what a residency is?

Yeah, absolutely. The Banff Center was an amazing experience. So, yeah, a residency is a place artists go to escape the distractions of daily life, such as like cooking, cleaning errands or part-time job whatever, and you can just make work in creative solitude. The BAM Center is an incredible institution that has amazing facilities for artists to experiment and explore different mediums. For example, if you're a ceramic artist and you want to learn Raku firing or aluminum casting, they have different facilities and resources and technicians to support you and to make your artistic vision come true. It's truly an amazing institution.

What did you make while you were there?

I was able to create the largest painting I've made to date at the BAM Center, due to their just absolutely massive studios, so it was really fun to experiment and paint in there. I personally did what's called a thematic residency, which has a bit more structure than a traditional residency, so it was called Rewilding the Body Eclectic, and there were 18 artists in my group from all over the world working with the body in some capacity, any medium. It wasn't just painters, and the residency was led by Zachary Logan and Siddhartha V Sa, and I learned so much from both of them. They were just both incredible to work with and it was such an honor and a privilege to work alongside the artists in my group as well. It was honestly a life-changing experience.

What does it mean to scale up at this point in your career?

Scale up In what regard?

Get bigger, get more ambitious, make something enormous.

Oh man, like, I'm often restricted to the size of a door right now. So I like the largest painting I've I've made to date is 10 feet by six feet. But yeah, again, it always has to fit through a door as of right now. I'd love to paint larger if I had the space to and I'm sure eventually I would. But yeah, it's tricky and it has all these components of being immersive and having a different presence and you experience the work differently when it's at a scale of that magnitude. And yeah, it's tricky to work, it's tricky to do like it's a very physical undertaking. I'm often painting on ladders and or on the floor because I have to go up and down, so it's like a very physical, yeah, physical undertaking. For sure. Maybe that's part of the athlete in me as well, who knows?

yeah, and it's a self-portrait, right? So having your biggest portrait or biggest piece of work also being about yourself can you tell me a bit about that and what inspired that work?

yeah, sure, yeah, it might seem super narcissistic to have the biggest portrait of mine be myself, but ultimately I wanted to include a self-portrait in my recent body of work and I just never got around to it. And I'm always more interested in other people's faces and who they are, and I've just always had the investigation outwards. So, again in this residency, zachary Logan was leading it and he is known for his self portraits and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to turn the investigation inwards and I wanted to exhibit the level of vulnerability that my models and participants have given to me in the past. And yeah, it's a nude self-portrait and it's I view it as how I'm interacting with my queerness and a sort of oscillation of identity as well. I identify as pansexual, so that is a constant state of oscillation for me and it was about that and vulnerability, sexuality and yeah, it was was a really interesting process to paint myself in in in that way.

Yeah, yeah, is it harder to do a self-portrait than it is to paint someone else, or is it the other way around?

I actually. I think it's easier. Yeah, it's easier because you inherently know your features. It's funny in some of the classes I teach people a very common mistake of artists that are just starting out and they're doing portraits they often end up painting themselves by accident. It's just like we know our features. I don't know what it is, but it's a very common mistake for young or young emerging artists and so I would say, in a way, it's easier. But I think I found it difficult because of the vulnerability and like it's not a super flattering portrait. I'm not wearing any makeup or jewelry or anything, so it was very stripped down and it can be hard to look at yourself in that lens sometimes. But I think it was super important to navigate that and confront that vulnerability.

Speaking of your work as a teacher, can you tell me a bit more about your critical painting perspective workshops that you're doing right now with Malwa?

Yes, thank you for asking. I founded Critical Painting Perspectives as a mentee to Lisa Wood in the Malwa Foundation Mentorship Program 2019-2020. So our mentorship was impacted by the pandemic and we were unable to continue meeting in person. So I started CPP as a way to connect with my fellow mentees online. Basically, I just pick articles that we could talk about and discuss over Zoom. It was super casual and then, after I completed the mentorship program, shauna Dempsey offered me the position to continue to facilitate it and it's been going for five years now and it's my absolute favorite job. I love doing it and, yeah, how it works is basically I select a short, accessible article each month on a contemporary painter. I usually try to pick female, non-binary, queer living artists to again contribute to that contemporary conversation and I select the article, send it to those who are interested in participating and we discuss the artist's work over Zoom and I create a slideshow on the artist's work, their influences, we discuss their concepts, theories, aesthetics, ethics, career trajectory, and, yeah, it makes for a very inspiring Monday morning conversation.

And it's free. Yeah, is it open to everybody, or is it just for people living in Manitoba? And it's free?

Is it open?

to everybody, or is?

it just for people living in Manitoba. It's open to everybody, for women and gender minorities in any location, and it's totally free.

Great Okay.

Good to know, to pivot a little bit, what have been some career highlights so far. So the past year has been super exciting for my artistic career. Being interviewed by Robert Enright and having my work featured in the painting issue of Border Crossings was a huge accomplishment for me. It was, yeah, extremely humbling to be a part of that issue. Banff Center, of course, was a big milestone in my career as well, and I have a few upcoming exhibitions this year I'm super excited for as well.

Yeah, that article was so great. Where are the upcoming exhibitions?

I have a show at Modern Fuel in May. That's in Kingston, ontario, and that'll be showing my recent body of work, the Inbetween, and then I have a solo exhibition here in Winnipeg in September at Gallery 1CO3, which I'm super excited about, and we'll also be showing that body of work but more pieces. So I think most of the paintings from that series will be in the show and we're going to have some opening night performances featuring folks that are in the paintings and we're going to do a panel discussion with the folks in the paintings and myself included, in place of kind of an artist talk to again to reinforce that more collaborative nature of the series. And, yeah, it's going to be really fun kind of community queer extravaganza that is so exciting.

I will definitely be marking my calendar for that. I will be there, um, and that brings me on to my next question what have been some lessons that you've learned in your career so far?

You need a lot of patience to be an artist. Things often move really slowly in the art world. It takes time to build connections and grow relationships. Sometimes I feel I'm the most impatient painter out there. It's kind of part of the reason my work is really gestural. I want it done quickly. I love the chaos of painting fast, but I think, yeah, taking a step back sometimes and trusting your intuition and not rushing into things is really important.

I think one thing that's at the forefront of so many artists' mind is the idea of networking and being scared to network and talk to other people and building those connections in the art world. So how do you, as an artist, network?

visits and just putting yourself out there, introducing yourself to people. I think it's really important to attend people's shows or, if not, if you're not an opening kind of person, then maybe going to check out the show at a different time and galleries quiet. I think it's really important to reach out to artists and connect with people that you feel are making work that inspires you or perhaps that is in a similar vein to yours. We can't create art without these communal connections and I think it's incredibly important to put yourself out there.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Where do you see your art going in the future?

I'd love to exhibit internationally in the States, asia, europe, anywhere. Really, I just want to continue painting and creating new work and contributing to that conversation of contemporary painting.

What advice would you have for someone hoping to become an artist?

If you're going to become an artist, make sure you love what you do. I can't stress that enough. I've seen it several times where people think they enjoy creating work and then it can turn into your job and all of a sudden it's not just for fun, it's really important you love what you do of being an artist. You need to know how to do research and write applications. You need to be curious about the world and again be a part of a larger community. It's a lot of moving parts. It requires a ton of work and if you're going to work that hard, I recommend you love what you do.

Thanks for that, laura. I think that's really good advice for anyone who's thinking about moving into an arts career, remembering that passion is so important, but also that there's so much extra groundwork and moving parts that are a part of an arts career. So I think that's great advice, thank you, and thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It's been so nice to talk to you.

Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.