Laura Gonzalez

art

Every artist needs an Artist's statement, so here is mine.

Artist's statement

From a belief that the function of art is to resolve conflicts — both internal and within a field of enquiry — my creative practice is concerned with the materialisation of psychoanalytic ideas through a variety of different techniques. Having undergone interdisciplinary training in Spain, Portugal and the UK, I have produced paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs and sound installations. For my master’s degree, I decided to specialize in drawing, concentrating on its a reflexive attitude rather than understanding it as a choice of materials or an exploratory discipline culminating in other mediums.

My current work develops these concerns further, as I work through issues by using a self-reflexive approach to making work. I applied this methodology to study seduction for my doctoral degree and I am currently developing a practice that involves an exploration of hysteria through concentrating on what the hysteric’s body knows. This involves movement practice and the introduction of film and photographic cameras into the dance studio, not as documentation, but as a witness to the experience of the hysteric dancer.


Hysteria, 2011

 

About Me

Laura Gonzalez is an artist and writer. Her recent practice encompasses film, dance, photography and text, and her work has been exhibited and published in the UK, Spain and Portugal. She has spoken at numerous conferences and events, including the Museum for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the Medical Museum in Copenhagen, College Arts Association and the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society. When she is not following Freud, Lacan and Marx’s footsteps with her camera, she lectures postgraduate students at the Glasgow School of Art.

Her doctoral project, completed in 2010, investigated psychoanalytic approaches to making and understanding objects of seduction, including an examination of parallels between artistic and analytic practices, a study of Manolo Blahnik’s shoes as objects of desire, a disturbing encounter with Marcel Duchamp’s last work, and the creation of a psychoanalytically inspired Discourse of the Artefact, a framework enabling the circulation of questions and answers through a relational approach to artworks.

She is currently immersed in an interdisciplinary project exploring knowledge and the body of the hysteric.