LISA BRICE (b. 1968)
SFC
2005
oil on canvas
183 x 244 cm
The two haunting, green-hued work artworks by Lisa Brice in the SABC Art Collection constituted the centrepiece of her solo exhibition Night Vision (Goodman Gallery, 2006) in which she conjured a strange liquid world of personal recollection.
From early childhood, film provided an escape for Brice. As an artist working in Trinidad, she became a regular at the weekly gatherings of the Studio Film Club (SFC) run by artists Peter Doig and Che Lovelace at the CCA7 Studios. While drawing on her usual accumulation of imagery from media sources, the work is also informed by thousands of night vision photographs taken by Brice during the screenings. These photographs were used to illustrate and record the atmosphere of the SFC nights in a catalogue printed by…Continue Reading
Wilderness
2005
oil on canvas
83 x 244 cm
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Cape Town and based in London, Lisa Brice challenges traditional representations of women in Western art history through her figurative painting practice. The female nude, depicted in Brice’s signature cobalt blue, is reclaimed from a male gaze that seeks to disempower women as passive objects of desire. The women in her paintings stand as empowered figures driven by their own desires, rather than those of the spectator.
She makes use of unexpected painting and printing techniques on a variety of surfaces, including canvas and tracing paper. The act of tracing often leads her to a repetition of similar motifs or figures in her work, sometimes biographical, and at other times art historical. ‘I am attracted to the idea of repetition,’ Brice remarks. ‘Chasing that high, stories told and retold.’
In 2006, Brice had her first solo exhibition of paintings at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg, titled Night Vision, in which she reflected on the uncertainties of childhood. In 2009, her solo show More Wood for the Fire, presented at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg, detailed her relationship with the island of Trinidad. She had further solo exhibitions at Goodman Gallery in 2012 and 2015.
In 2011, Brice’s work was included in the Vitamin P2 publication, Phaidon’s major anthology of international painting.
In June 2016, she was included on a show at London’s Camden Arts Centre Making & Unmaking curated by Duro Olowu.
Brice had her first solo museum exhibition in the UK at Tate Britain in 2018, where she exhibited large-scale paintings which address the longstanding art-historical tradition of the female nude.