The Artist
Lucy Burscough
actually studied sculpture at Manchester Metropolitan University
but went on to concentrate on painting and portraiture after
her first painting was used by the National Portrait Gallery
to publicise their BP Portrait Award.
A local
painter, Lucy juggles, fragments and muddles the face to reveal
how the mind inherently seeks order and rationalises space.
Images become
cutups, jigsaws, tessellating canvases and interactive puzzles
some of which the viewer can engage with physically and arrange
to fit their particular visual desires for the day. Lucy says:
"Thus,
originally realist paintings are given the opportunity to
transmogrify into abstract works, and different aspects of
the image can have greater or lesser emphasis according to
the composition selected by the viewer."
The viewer
is offered an opportunity to play with the art and become participants
in the creative process in a manner that is usually impossible
within Burscough's chosen medium of oil painting.
Lucy invites
the viewer to mess their heads up. Burscough's website also
includes some of her more classically constructed portraits
in oils on canvas.
In this
more traditional form Lucy's use of diverting composition lends
a particular appeal to personal portraits. In her portraits
of children she tends to avoid the kitsch of traditional family
portraits whilst still representing the personality of the sitters.
Lucy has
exhibited widely in the north west, in London and Italy and
has been shortlisted for a number of portraiture awards. Her
portrait subjects have included the late, great John Peel, Lord
Melvyn Bragg and Jon Snow of Channel 4 News.
Lucy works
as a model-maker at Chorlton's Cosgrove Hall Films, a
well respected Mancunian institution where DangerMouse, Chorlton
and the Wheelies amongst other greats were produced.
Burscough currently makes Postman Pat's sacks.
Her portrait
of Matt and Phred's regular double-bassist Jon Thorne is featured
on the album, "Manchester Road" by Jon Thorne's
Oedipus Complex which was released on EGEA records in May 2006.
Lucy can
be contacted by email at:
lucyburscough@hotmail.com
More of
her work can be seen on the website at:
www.lucysart.co.uk
