| Choreography |

Liza Mackay - Kenya

During four years at St Martins School of Art my favourite class was always the life drawing lessons. Later, when I taught life drawing to High School students I would always start with the understanding of the structure of the body, the skeleton, the muscles that allow us to move and the proportions of the body. Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Vetruvian Man’ is a wonderful guide on proportions. But finally and possibly most important is to see the rhythms created by the figure as it moves and rests.

So the figure has been a constant in my life, either drawing and painting it or moving within my own body as a contemporary dancer.

The idea behind this collection of work was to combine the two. I photographed Adam in a long series of photos of him moving from one pose to another. After painting studies of four of the poses I did two with coloured background. The poses of the figures echo two contemporary dance moves that came from Ancient Egyptian figures. Then I thought of ‘choreographing’ moments in a dance for four figures. The initial composing was done using Adobe Photoshop and followed by the old fashioned method of squaring up to draw the design on the canvas.

Colour depends on light (with help from Photoshop filters!). We live in a country where the light renders colour so vibrantly. I hope the paintings capture the range of colours reflected in a figure. The last two canvases with fragmented figures are an experiment and an attempt to show movement.

I also painted portraits hence ‘Boy with Lizard’ and ‘Adam Chienjo’ with gratitude for his inspiration.

I hope you enjoy the show!

Liza Mackay |Artist

From this Exhibition
Publications & Press
Liza’s evolution from dancer to fine art painter Margaretta wa Gacheru - BUSINESS DAILY
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