After completing five years of arts training at the University of Wollongong in the mid eighties Crane gained an Associate Diploma of Creative Art followed by a Bachelor of Creative Arts, graduating with Distinction. Crane has been involved with many artist-run initiatives and community arts projects over many years, During this time she participated in many solo and group exhibitions. She was also awarded the Sir William Keys Churchill Fellowship researching community arts and mental health in 2002.
Her work has been represented in many groups and selected exhibitions – regionally, nationally, and internationally. Since her arrival to the rural coastal village of Pambula on the Far South Coast of NSW, she has participated in eleven solo shows. She won the Illawarra Art Prize in 1986 and has been acquired by the Alice Craft Acquisition 2007 for mixed media. In 2008 she was the joint winner of the Calleen Acquisition (with Wendy Teakel). Her work is in the collection of the Bundanon Trust.
Career highlights include residencies with the Bundanon Trust, Alice Springs, Broken Hill Art Exchange, Berlin, New Zealand and most recently Venice, Italy. During September 2016 she traveled to Barcelona for a two-week residency at Art Print Residence to make a series of unique prints. During February/March 2017 she was an artist in residence at Bull Bay, North Bruny Island Tasmania.
“ Over the past few years, my work has been about the landscape of the place. My abstract landscape inspired works to speak about moments of time where narratives formed via my own visual lexicon in an experiential and gestural manner. It is from a place deep within where shapes form and are distilled into fragments of past and present merging together in an abstract form. It is about seeking questions and revealing an intimate personalised glimpse into my inner landscape – both physically and metaphorically – known and unknown.”
For well over two years now I have been making handmade brushes in a variety of mediums in all shapes and sizes. From gathering native plant fibres, found materials, feathers, and cotton then binding onto pre-loved brush handles, twigs, driftwood or bamboo it became apparent that each brush held its own story. The story of the places I have inhabited and the landscape of where I live.
It was my intent to push the act of mark-making further by creating a more personalized approach to my own visual lexicon. By using the brushes it was like unlocking a language with each brush holding its own unique feel and quality. But it was the unknown or unexpected mark that each brush made that pushes you out of your comfort zone that was appealing – that Lisa of control and a newfound freedom that excited me most of all. To then connect in a fresh and exciting way. The brush becoming a keeper of memories – of both remembered times and places.
Brush making has become a synthesis for me – from the utilitarian and rudimentary forms and approach within many mediums – to a journey rich in discovery. The mark-making process becoming a conversation between each brush and its maker. From the reveal of the first marks with each brush to the shapes and forms within the unexpected language that flowed onto paper, canvas, board or cloth. Subtle delicate marks found were discovered along with the calligraphic, bold, and unexpected qualities of the brush – embedded in each work. They speak both ‘of the land and from the land’.
It became obvious to me through this form of exploration that artists have this inherent and instinctual desire to create their own unique visual language through a variety of mediums – the act of mark-making with handmade brushes has mapped new territory.
Exhibition details:
Lorna Crane
- Dates: Monday, July 3 to Sunday, July 30
- Cost: Free
- Venue: Gataker’s Artspace, Maryborough
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- https://lornacrane.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/pg/lornacrane.artist/
- http://www.thepicta.com/place/gatakers-artspace/80557622/J0HWOgySQAAAF0HV4jMFQAAAFiYA
- gatakersartspace@frasercoast.qld.gov.au
- tel: 41905723
