WEAPONS OF MASS DELUSIONS : graphite paintings by Laurie Lipton

Where: Grand Central Art Center GCAC museum

CAL STATE FULLERTON GRAND CENTRAL ART CENTER
125 N. Broadway
Santa Ana, CA 92701
General Phone: 714.567.7233


http://www.grandcentralartcenter.com/aboutus.php

Contact: Gary Pressman - Gallery Director CoproGallery
E-Mail for sales inquiries: CoproGallery@Live.com
web-site preview: www.CoproGallery.com

What: WEAPONS OF MASS DELUSIONS : graphite paintings by Laurie Lipton

Opening Reception, Saturday,May 1 - 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.
Poster & Book Signing,
Saturday,May 1 - 6:00 p.m
Tea Party and walk through with Artist Saturday May 8, 2:00 p.m.

Dates:   Exhibit runs; May 1 - June 13, 2010

Contact:  Gary Pressman, Gallery - Director Copro Gallery 

THE DEAD FACTORY
charcoal and graphite on paper
32 3/4" x 52"

CoproGallery in conjunction with Grand Central Art Center is proud to present Laurie Lipton's first solo museum show in the United States, "Weapons of Mass Dellusions". Inspired by the religious paintings of Flemish Masters and the photography of Diane Arbus, Lipton's dramatic black and white images are haunting yet laced with a sly, satirical black humor focusing on themes of fear, sexuality, mayhem, greed, and indifference. Lipton's work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the United States. Grand Central Art Center will also be hosting London-based artist, Laurie Lipton as its forty-third artist-in-residence.

Lipton grew up in New York and was the first to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing. She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany, and France before making London her home. Although she attended a renowned university to study art, she considers herself to be self-taught. Lipton spent many hours in the library studying artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Hans Memling, Van Eyck and others developing her own unique cross-hatching technique and building up layers of charcoal and pencil to create the same luminous quality of 17th century Flemish Masters.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
I was watching the Iraq war on CNN while eating my dinner. I crunched on my food as peoples' homes and limbs were being blown apart. There was a commercial break about washing powder and cars, then I was transported back to the bombing, women screaming and bloodshed. The whole scenario suddenly struck me as obscene. How is this possible? I am comfortably eating a meal in my own home while watching horrible suffering and this is "normal" television viewing.

I was being numbed by the media... all the information and graphics were manipulating me like a puppet. My first piece, "The Disasters of War", was a take-off on the on the Goya lithograph of the same name depicting the horrors he'd seen on the streets of Spain during the early 19th century. I had seen worse horrors than Goya on a screen in my living room and been far less affected. This was the starting point for the WEAPONS OF MASS DELUSIONS show; apathy, war, credulity, consumerism and TV.

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