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 ideas through a variety of different techniques. Having undergone a wholly interdisciplinary training in Spain, Portugal and the UK, I have produced paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs and sound installations. I decided to specialize in Drawing, concentrating on its a reflective attitude rather than understanding it as a choice of materials or an exploratory discipline culminating in other mediums.
Using drawing as a loose framework, I developed a working manifesto, taking the Dogme'95 Vow of Chastity as a model of how clear boundaries may enhance artistic outcomes. The Precarious Art Manifesto seeks to apply strategies found in homeopathic medicine and the writing of aphorisms to the creative process. The manifesto limits the characteristics of the pieces themselves: they must be economic in materials, shapes and actions; transportable (or, in some extreme cases, dispensable); repeatable and, above all, they must be displayed transparently. This 'less is more' approach was aimed at questioning structural and methodological issues before the metaphorical ones. However, every law has its loophole and, as the work tried to break free from the control imposed by the game of rule making, it showed apparent contradictions that ended up being part of the form itself.

Strange Animal, 2001
Being committed to research training in an academic context, I am currently developing a practice-led research project investigating the seductive possibilities of Fine Art objects. Part of a PhD degree, this projects seeks to understand cultural phenomena like the iPod and design icons like Juicy Salif, drawing up characteristics of visual seduction and applying them to the creation of art objects.
Photography
I was trained as a painter and a sculptor but seduction, the subject of my research, tricked me. The only way to escape its power was to photograph it so, for my PhD I took a medium format camera out with me to my shopping trips in Glasgow, London and New York. This was not the first time I had used this technique, an SLR camera was my companion during the year I studied in Portugal. Images of my practice-led investigation have been shown at the End Gallery in May 2008.
Sound and video
My explorations into sound and the moving image have always been a matter of attitude, rather than technique. I find there's something exploratory about them, somewhere where I can get lost and forget about the outcome...
Split Flip, a series of animated photographs, 2006[...] the subject can never be anything other than divided, split, alienated from himself [...]. The split is irreducible, can never be healed; there's no possibility of synthesis.
Evans, D (1996) Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, p. 192
flip, v. 1 turn over or cause to turn over with a quick, smooth movement. 2 toss (something) into the air so that it turns over. 3 (flip through) flick through. 4 informal, suddenly become deranged or very angry.
Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Tenth edition, revised in 2002 and edited by Judy Pearsall
B (bijou video), 2006. 2 mins 38 secs
Things I have never told you (mother), sound installation, 2001
Selected Exhibitions
Here's a selection of some of of the exhibitions I have participated in. The most recent one A case of seduction was part of my PhD investigation, on seduction, a topic I have been thinking about since To all the lovers and sweethearts we will never meet
© 2008 Laura Gonzalez | Designed by Neil Scott

