Dominica Vaughan: From Leamington to Paris and back again
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DOMINICA VAUGHAN – Artist Painter
Due to the erotic nature of these works, I am unable to include them in this exhibition. However, all images can be seen on the LSA website. Arrangements can be made to view the work in my studio. |
The portrait series Le Grand Duc, Flaming June, Icarus, Carnaval and Femme aux Plumes were all produced in Paris, 2005. They depict people isolated and framed with a new identity in an imaginative background. I continued to use the process of applying paint in layers, 'pushing' and 'pulling' it over the surface plane then obliterating the image with a dark ground. Scraping back and dissolving this 'shroud' allowed the figure to re-emerge and harmoniously place itself in its infinite universe.
| This work was preceded by the paintings entitled L'Esclavage (2004) - the first paintings I produced in Paris since I arrived there in 2003. These erotic images frame a female form obscured by an organic mesh that is in the process of decay. The environment is dark and claustrophobic with only glimpses of light, like a feeble torch searching for a missing person in the dark. There is a sense of menace and submission. During the year (2002) before I decided to move to Paris, I produced a series of paintings and drawings entitled Beyond Skin. We are constantly in a process of change. When one is aware of feeling 'blocked' or 'trapped', that is the time when fundamental changes are taking place within us. One can deny what is happening or accept it by discarding the old skin and emerging ready to push oneself forward. In 2000/1, I was working on the Resurrection Series. Experiences in life can 'bury' one for a time but there is always hope of regeneration and growth. If one feels 'half dead', then one is also 'half alive'. In England (1999), I was a First Prize winner for the painting Untitled. This painting is of a brooding female form in the process of emerging to the surface of the canvas, her presence felt but her identity withheld. This led me immediately on to the paintings entitled Emergence (1999). The figure more evident, no longer consumed by its environment but freed from it. |
L'Esclavage (2004) |
In 1998, the Inner Rhythm was semi-abstract. I was experimenting with the idea of expressing the human emotional response to music. The body and mind consumed into a trance by the aural stimulation to music. The body and environment fusing into one.
At the beginning of my journey as an artist, I created large abstract paintings Freeing the Spirit. I wanted to express my interior landscape through vibrant colours and gestural mark making.
(* Shunga scrolls from the 12th to the 18th centuries are the famous Japanese erotic pillow books and were comprised of illustrations as well as erotic poems, stories and legends).
Dominica Vaughan
Artist Statement 2009
