Project Archive

An archive of selected projects including exhibitions, film, stop motion animation and charity work.

Fruits of Labour - 12/9/24

Artist Statement

“The force that through the green fuse drives the flower’ - Dylan Thomas

Angus Lowe’s recent project is a series of paintings in oils, inks and marker pen. It is a meditation on the creative force of nature in the aftermath of his son’s birth. The works describe the transformation of nature’s chaotic elements into the singular forms of fruit. The ‘fruits’ in the works do not represent those of specific species. Instead a generalised amalgam is used as a motif for the end point of this natural process. The unfamiliar colours and form of these ‘fruits’ plays with our primordial instinct (and perhaps even our evolutionary development of colour vision) to determine fruit’s ripeness and edibility. Fruit is bound up with the nature of human perception.

Lowe’s Art History Thesis on Francis Bacon uncovered the writings of Gilles Deleuze. His supposition that ‘The task of painting is defined as the attempt to render visible forces that are not themselves visible’ has been a guiding influence in Lowe’s practice. This led to closer study of the masters of this methodology; Cezanne, Bomberg, Auerbach and Bacon, who render the way forces act upon their subjects. Here the fibrous unfurling of vegetation demands its own distinct rendering reminiscent of the mark making in Munch’s landscapes.

The images are not botanical studies, they are making visible the sensation of fruiting. In some of the pieces the first marks are instinctive marker pen lines whose gestural energy set the anatomy of force lines in the work for the next application of materials to follow. Inks are allowed to flow, the capillary action mimicking Xylem and Phloem. Oil paint brings the sense of order, diagramming the journey from abstract into figure, the field into fruit.

Together the works are an exercise in honouring nature’s sublime as well as demonstrating Art’s limits to do so, like Thomas “I am dumb to mouth unto my veins, How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.”

Green Fuse

Oil paint, Ink and Acrylic Marker on canvas

122 x 91 cm

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower" Dylan Thomas

Rhizome

122 x 91 cm

Oil Paint, Ink and Acrylic marker on canvas

Pod

Ink, oil paint and acrylic marker

41 x 60 cm

A Ripening

30 x 40 cm

Ink on canvas

Fructuous

Oil paint and ink on canvas

73 x 48 cm

From Lines Solo Exhibition - Dec 2019

Venue website:    sunsetstudiopeckham.com

Site directions:    www.copelandpark.com/map/?location=c4

Artist Statement

I use ‘From Lines’ to describe my method of portrait composition involving a rapid, instinctive marker pen line while holding the idea of ‘portrait’ in my mind. This immediately delineates both the composition and gestural energy of the body. So rather than carry out the formation of an imagined image or a view from life, these works start from lines that are freed from intention, an approach pioneered by surrealism’s automatic drawing, particularly Joan Miro. But the next stage is not automatic painting. I look to see how the pattern of the drawing would act as a notion for a portrait. Mark making borrowed from Frank Auerbach; the application, scraping off and reworking of oil paint then fleshes a figure onto the ‘bones’ of the first line. The aim is that the finished character is not one that was designed but was born.

Not all works in the show start with a marker pen line, but none had a final image in mind when applying the first mark. The approach is closer to sculpture in that the malleable oil paint is laid down before the form is modelled from the material.

This evolution process is even more present in my stop motion animations. Working on the same canvas, every frame requires a constant adding, moving and removing of material in tiny increments without an end point in mind to push the resulting film closer to a natural phenomenon than a narrative sequence.

This search for form through the inner logic of the materials was influenced by research for my art history thesis on Francis Bacon who attempted to drag figuration out of a series of asignifying marks. I hold Cezanne’s determination to ‘paint forces’ firmly in mind. This is most clearly expressed in my painting ‘A Massing’, where each brush stroke is in a gravitational dance with each other.

Thank you to Cottia Thorowgood, Steph Lowe, Kirstie Little (Giles Miller Studio) Lizzie Lowe, Ian Lowe, Alex Rimmer and Ester Eyre for their support in this project.

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Films and Stop Motion Animation - 2017-18

https://vimeo.com/anguslowe/showreel010218

Stills from  Animation Showreel 2017

Tendons

https://vimeo.com/243510087

"I See You" Live visuals

https://vimeo.com/244716799

Stills from "I See you", visuals for Elkka's art installation and single release party hosted by Femme Culture on 25/11/2017

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Thick Skin - 2016

Thick Skin is a project working with people with acute dermatitis and psoriasis in collaboration with the British Skin Foundation. The proposed exhibition will illustrate to the participating case studies that there is beauty in the forms created by their condition. Working with various charities, the event will be a touchstone for debate on body image anxiety in various forms of media thereby raising awareness of the physical and psychological effects of skin disease.

If you suffer from an acute skin condition and would like to participate in this project or have any questions please contact me at anguselowe@gmail.com.