Alice Lee Exhibition

RESEARCH FROM ALICE LEE EXHIBITION

I visited the opening event of Alice Lee's second exhibition of print work at the Norwich Arts Center. This exhibition interested me as it combined geometry and technical drawing with animal subject matter, which is something I often do in my own work, however she approached this in a very different way to me, using compasses and arcs to actually construct forms .

Using this technique to depict birds works very effectively to capture the streamlined shapes and curves needed for aerodynamicism. It produces a very organic looking image which still has elements of mathematics and geometry. The sections where circles and arcs overlap are filled with tone to suggest wings, feathers and other features, making the entire design seem flowing and carefully constructed.

As well as her induvidual printed pieces, she had also designed wallpaper for one side of the room and a selection of typography also using compasses to produce arcing lines.

I really liked the work on display, and although it didn't hold much conceptual value, it got me thinking about more ways I could implement geometry, instead of just using it as pattern and background, to actually construct an image.

 

 

One of my favourite illustrations from the exhibition was the barn owl. With flat, convex faces, this can be quite hard to represent from unusual angles. However using lots of small curving lines Lee was able to capture this very beautifully, like contour lines on a map, perhaps more faithfully than could have otherwise been done using another method. Her drawings have an element of cubism to them due to the simplified forms used initially to produce the bird's shape.