I love British seaside towns. Especially in the winter when the tourists have gone and the B & Bs have their ‘No Vacancies’ signs up, and you can walk down the prom in the rain, and you can’t see where the sea meets the sky because everything’s grey . . . . I’m also sometimes curiously drawn to the slightly brasher side of some of the resorts - the flashing fairgrounds, candyfloss and ‘Kiss me Quick’ hats.

So when I came across a piece of art called ‘Oh . . she’s more front than Blackpool’ , I was immediately interested. Actually, you can’t help but be drawn into to Lisa Ashcroft’s work, due to her use of non-traditional materials such as magnetic letters, plastic kitsch, toys, glitter, gloss paint, hanging air fresheners etc. She weaves objects often thought of as garish or crass into beautiful, intricate paintings.

You can enjoy each piece simply for its surface pattern - the sparkle of glitter, sumptuous textures and vivid colours - but look a little deeper and you find a hidden message. Through these camouflaging layers Lisa is mimicking certain elements of society.

‘More Front than Blackpool’ (above) is a good example. Based on childhood memories, it is flamboyant and fun but at the same time it disguises a slightly seedy underbelly.

‘Pleasure Seeker’ illustrates snippets of the artist’s life at the time of making it. There are elements of her working day, politics, philosophy, humour and the ridiculous.

You can see lots of examples of these beautiful artworks at www.lisaashcroft.com. You can also read an interview with Lisa on the Preston Today website at www.prestontoday.net.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 25th, 2006 at 9:01 am and is filed under Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.