Lauren O'Hara

As an artist I aim to engage with the viewer by creating imagery that has an ever changing narrative that falls between the familiar and unfamiliar through de-identification of faces to figures in odd yet familiar settings. These mixed media narratives are set within obscure domestic environments, filled with mystery allowing the audience to take in their own creative interpretation. My practice is based around found photography from the 1960’s/ 1970’s, reflecting the moments of happiness, partying and freedom that happened more than a decade after the horrific events of the Second World War.

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Throughout my art practice I always start the foundation of my creativity through researching online as a way of collecting new imagery which can been changed with juxtapositions, composition and manipulation. This then allows me to experiment and create new narratives that are far from the original image/ context. The imagery I source is taken from found family photo albums and online archives in which I have a great interest and fascination which usually depict and document domestic family life and happy memories in the post war years.

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The aim of my artwork is to play with the concept of oddity, I want the viewer to view the piece more and more picking up new details each time they gaze, it will allow their own imagination to run free to think what is the meaning/ narrative? My artwork is also heavily influenced by the processes used during the beginning stages of the painting. I focus less of the technical application of paint and finer details to focus on the imagery as it is the most important element of my work. Another process I have carried out during my art practice is approaching art in the most creative way possible, I thought to myself “when are we most creative?” – childhood! I should approach my art as through I am in a childlike state, playing around with imagery and manipulating it as you would a child.

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I personally feel the need to manipulate the imagery to make it my own, I like to create depictions that are full of oddity and aesthetics. Throughout my current body of work, I have had a confliction between identity and how it can be taken away from figures depicted in the selected imagery. I knew that adding a mask was obvious but I wanted something that was less obvious, therefore I began to add in figures that had their faces manipulated with the use of distortion and through the use of paint to build layers covering the underlying image. These approaches help with de-identifying the original emotions of the found imagery, detaching it from its original state.

Behind the concept of de- identifying, it allows me to represent how those depicted in the imagery were once in the world, they were the last to experience World War Two and the changes in history post World War Two. They were much more grateful for new technologies and other inventions of which we now take for granted. The importance of found family photos shows how important it was at the time to capture these special moments in time, today it is rare that many of us would have family photo albums, everything has gone digital and can be erased in seconds.