Laurie Lipton

Laurie Lipton is absolutely adorable (it's one of the great injustices in life where amazingly creative and dedicated artists are equally attractive). She's also a Carnegie Mellon graduate, so it's neat that she was local, even though she currently lives in London (by way of Holland, Belgium, Germany and France).

Senorita Meurte (Lady Death)

2005. Pencil on paper.


"I wanted to learn to paint like the 17th century Flemish Masters, but no one could teach me. It was all abstract and conceptual art at my university, so I cut my classes and sat for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling and Van Eyck. I tried to teach myself how to paint in egg-tempera but constantly failed. Finally I developed a way of drawing that mimicked the technique by building up thousands of tiny lines to get a tone. It was an insane way to draw, and took a horrendous amout of time, but I was able to get the same kind of luminous detail that the Flemish painters had achieved."

The absolute dedication and the absurdly intricate process of her work reminds me of Vija Clemins' wave and star drawings.

Mirror, Mirror

2002. pencil and charcoal on paper.

"Diane Arbus was another of my inspirations, and her use of black and white (the color of ghosts, memory and madness) opened up a world of possibilities for me."

Haunted

2001. charcoal on paper.