Marie Lewallen

Hometown:

San Francisco

Statement:

Visit my website at: marielewallen.com to view work and statements...

In this work you will find: a genuine love of people and an obsessive exploration of two things: social environments and the physical form.
In the early paintings I call "Sweet Meats", I was fascinated with how a person changes as they slip through and between the permeated edges of one social reality into another. Like light falling on a face, an environment gives a being the mental perameters through which to understand its own behavior, and that of its companions. The capital I Individual is as immaterial as morality without a context in which to understand itself. Through removing the legibility of environmental cues, I would hint at them instead, asking the viewer to react and understand through only what the subject "chose" to show. All of my subjects are based on photographs, and they were always aware of being photographed. All the viewers became subjects in each other's presence.
This is an obvious journey through the documented observations of a wide-eyed woman who loves to look. The people painted are my own David Sedaris characters; they are made precious by their vulnerability; falling asleep on a sidewalk, fighting back the laughter that looks like weeping, they are most beloved when their human nature steals the spotlight from whatever environment they are in.
If our subjectivity is objectively intended, and the world is more fully realized when it is recognized for singularity, these individuals are being drawn out for bringing their "world" closer to its goal.
The second Body of work is simply titled "2006" as it is basically a record of the stream-of consciousness my work followed in reaction to a year when my paintings were painfully self-conscious. They are transitional paintings, which surprisingly enough stand on their own in hindsight.
"Wise Blood" was my thesis show, which sorted out the transition.
Flannery O'conner wrote about a character that thought his blood whispered to him, rhythmically unearthing the answers to life for his ears only. I love this character for his nepotism, his narcissism, and his faith. I love this idea, because I can hear mine whispering too... so I ran with it.

Background:

UCSD fine arts 2004 BA

California College of the Arts 2007 MFA

San Diego born, I now live and work in San Francisco where I show and continue my personal body of work as well as maintaining a portraiture and commissions practice.