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Designer
  • Artwork
  • Profile
  • Exhibitions
  • Interview
Zoe Crosse
London Metropolitan University (BA 1st Class Hons Fine Art, 2008 / 2008)
  • Toy Taker II
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £750.00
  • Toy Taker VI
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £750.00
  • SlippageIII
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £450.00
  • Toy Taker II
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £750.00
  • Toy Taker.
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £750.00
  • Toy Taker IV
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £650.00
  • Amy
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £350.00
  • Toy Taker III
    Size (H x W x D): 0 x 0 x 0 cm
    £600.00

Profile

 
 

My work is primarily concerned with the process of painting as a product of researching the tangents I create in and around the idea of identity and being human. My paintings  often transpire  during a process of studying a wide variety of subjects which grow out of each other and always seem to link logically in retrospect: childhood and the creative process, the history of childhood as a social construct, philosophy, myth, life experiences', memory, political  issues  and other tangents thrown up through attention to serendipity. Subject matter can vary as primarily I am concerned with how it is affected by being painted.

I apply a mixture of traditional techniques, researching the methods of the masters and experimenting with them in my own work. My painting, as in ‘the act of’, celebrates and explores the visceral qualities of paint and the technical possibilities of painting. I deliberately employ a process of destruction to help me create a painting I could never have planned.

My research into childhood as a construct led me to the Museum of Childhood. The museum implies that childhood should be a time of play, filled with toys and love. Such a notion can set us up for disappointment. It became apparent that the toys had a hidden agenda; they operated as double agents. The toys enable children to enact the roles prescribed to them, according to class, race or gender, by society; they reinforce the order of things by becoming signifiers, as does the golly, the Barbie or the Action Man. The toy paintings were the product of my research into childhood.

The Toy paintings then led to the Toy Taker paintings. The paintings of the Toy Takers ( the fallen cherubs and Putties of the divinely inspired Old Masters) deliberately embody a satirical kind of pessimism, a playful irony and a sinister uneasiness; they are verging on the edge of the illustrative and so seem  to provoke the viewers need for narrative. There is a latent feeling within the paintings that a small melodrama may have unfolded, as the toy takers seem to be caught in the act of tormenting  their unknowing and somewhat rather pathetic victims.

Other works simply celebrate the ability of paint to change the meaning in a photograph as I sometimes I work  from found images of  known and unknown strangers uncovered whilst researching ; I say  ‘strangers’- because  time  and interpretation create a barrier between knowing and understanding ; Through interpretive painting I seem to produce another layer of meaning which relies on  memory being relegated  to the auspices of the  nostalgic and the mourned .



Exhibitions

  • 2010-2011  December- February . The Lock. London. Toy Story.  
  •  2009 . 'The Big Ink' .Take Courage Art Gallery Amersham Arms. SE14. 12th - 14th June
  • 2009 . Top 100. Round II  6th June  jealous gallery N8 LONDON
  • Great Escape Festival & Convention  May
  • 2009 . Drawings with Dolphins.13th February . Stoke Newington Sartorial Art.London
  • 2009. London Art Fair. Jan 19th contemporary Art Projects.
  • 2008 . INDO. WhiteChapel High Street. Dec  5th
  • 2009 . Top 100. Head Office,MCPS/PRS Alliance.Berner St W1. Jan 19th
  • 2008. The Lloyd Gill Gallery. Weston Supermare. Parody. Oct-Nov .
  • 2008. The Crypt. Kings Cross.London. All This Time. Oct 10th  .Five female portraits.Oils and resins on canvas.
  • 2008. DegreeArt.com. Collect 4. Vyner Street.London. Sept 30th  Toy Paintings. Child’s Play. Oil on canvas.
  • 2008. Contemporary Art Projects. Old Street .London.Start Your Collection. August 1st . Female portraits and Toys from the Child’s Play collection. Oil and resins  on canvas.
  • 2008. The Lock. London. Child’s Play. January . Seekers . Oil on canvas.
  • 2007. The Nelly Dean. Soho London. Painted. April . Disconnected. Oil on canvas.
  • 2007. The Lock. London. Burden of desire. January. Disconnected. Oil on canvas.
  • 2007. The Brick Lane Gallery. London. Peace Camp . Hippy Shit. Oil on canvas.
  • 2006. Hackney Round Chapel. London. Nausea 2006. Epiphany. Oil on canvas
  • 2006.Transition Gallery. London. Index. . Between The Lines. Artist Book.
  • 2005.Mary Ward Centre. London. Viridian. . Selected works on canvas.

Interview

What is your favourite film of all time?

The Rocky Horror Show. ...and Shrek.....sorry there’s no literary pieces. I saw the Rocky Horror Show as a film when I was younger and Tim Curry blew my mind, I think I must have seen it a dozen times and I made a video of it...then my daughter found it and now she is addicted too. I also like Shrek and other such like movies...Chicken Run, Toy Story and Bugs Life. These all became favourites whilst raising a child...thank god they stuff these movies with adult humour and such sharp observations of life.....otherwise a mother could go insane...?

What music are you currently listening to and why?

               

Which living artists do you most admire and why?

Which living artists do you most admire and why?
I admire a number of living artists......Marlene Dumas because she has great panache and an uncanny painterly sensitivity for taboo which she combines with politically tinged ideas. She is an intelligent painter her titles are genius. I also like Kay Donachie, this is out of a purely aesthetic compulsion, I am drawn to her style. Every week I am enchanted by the young talent tableau-ed in the East End....London is excellent for art.... Being a mother I do not get the chance to get out of London much to see other Galleries.

Which deceased artist do you most admire and why?

                 

Which exhibition that you have visited made the greatest impact on you and why?

I think when I first decided to start painting..... but for the life of me did not know what i needed to paint ........or how to approach a painting with no skill or training at all.........not that this is what goes on in Art schools any more anyway.........I was afraid of the gleaming white canvas.......paralysed....so I took myself off down to the Saatchi Gallery to see the triumph of Painting.... I was enthralled at the honesty of Marlene Dumas’ work..........the fluid hard hitting authentic language she used punched holes in me. I was most impressed with the work of Peter Doig, he made painting look fun.

What is the question you get asked most frequently about your work and how do you answer it?

                 

What / who inspired you to be an artist?

                  

Can you tell us about where you make your art and what if any the significance of this location is?

I make my art in me, that is the significance......it’s always about exploring my interest in how my identity was formed and is being formed and how best to translate this into paint. I see my identity as representing a general western female view point....of an era perhaps?.....though I never expect to speak for all. I have been painting some Pre Raphaelite inspired pieces, of children at play in semi urban/ overgrown spaces in and around Tottenham Marshes....Tottenham is where I also teach and live...the paintings are inspired by memories of my own childhood; Which I see echoed in the lives of some of the kids on the estate where I live in. These works were a part of my final project at uni but I felt they were a bit overly self conscious so they are on hold....I aim to continue this project in the future....here is the blerb which went into the catalogue. ‘I photographed children at play, trying to recreate my own memories. The photos have been translated into paintings. The paintings of children caught on the edge of their thoughts reflect romantic memories of my own childhood, where a mixture of my imagination, fields, building sites and disused industrial sites being reclaimed by nature, provided the back drop for a magical world. In retrospect and armed with Freudian blame, the realm of childhood may have been a time when the imagination waged a war on unhappier realities, for some children. When there is a possible lack of affectionate love or nurturing in a child’s life, the imaginative and creative child evolves a parallel world, where she is queen and has unbounded powers: Where she is at once, both at one with and in awe of the latent powers of nature: Where she remains un affected and where fear is exciting and something to be almost nonchalant about. I wanted to capture these ideas in my paintings of children.’

What do you like most about being an artist?

Not having to do a job you hate...... day in and day out. That is like the equivalent to a prison sentence, it is so soul destroying, it took me twenty years to find my way back to my first love......I was not allowed to go to art school when I was 18....I had to pick a ‘proper degree’...so I was a teacher for twenty years......an extremely creative one too! I love being an artist because it is a way of life which allows me to be’ not normal ‘ ....exploit my love of the absurd and get away with being eccentric.... it is as if the old adage...“no one understands me”....is true but ok because one is an artist and that is as it should be.........!

What is your greatest achievement as an artist to date?

My greatest achievement, so far is managing to paint a picture(s)... which somebody loves enough to want..... it seems to validate me, my life ...!

What are your plans for the coming year?

To paint and exhibit and get noticed.