Clockwise from Top Left Corner:
Beach, 2013, oil on canvas;
Last Supper in the Titian Room, 2014, oil on canvas*;
On the Doc, 2014, oil on canvas;
Summer, 2010, oil on canvas;
Jake, 2013, oil on canvas; Subway Snooze, 2013 oil on canvas;
Lauren's Studio;
The Michael, 2014, oil on canvas;
Lauren in her studio
* Last Supper in the Titian Room: on display in "Breaking Ground"
exhibition at the Lunder Arts Center in Porter square until the 22nd
of March. (Lesley University, Cambridge MA: Event details here)
"Like several creatives, I work part time as a waitress. The
company I work for is called Last Supper, who cater parties at the Victoria
and Albert Museum. The museum assigns us to the Titian Room to eat and
get ready for the shift, hence Last Supper in the Titian Room."
I strive to create a feeling of nostalgic familiarity in the viewer not only through content, but also through the use of colour, light and geometry. My artwork celebrates insignificancy, and monumentalizes disposable imagery.
Derived from my photography my paintings largely start with photos taken using the camera on my phone, flippant snaps that would typically be erased and forgotten. The imagery is not profound but rather ordinary, unrefined and blemished, highlighting actions and attitudes people experience daily.
The images themselves project immediacy and disposability, portraying moments that are often overlooked, if only subconsciously, due to modern priorities and perpetual preoccupations with the future. The types of scenes in my paintings and photography are important parts of life. I enjoy the historical weight of oil paint as a medium that immortalized Gods and Kings of the past; juxtaposed with my use of it, a vehicle for celebrating unassuming, in-between moments of today.
Lauren Mele was trained at The Art Institute of Boston in the US (2004 – 2008) and upon finishing her undergraduate degree she moved to London and got her MA at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art (2010 – 2012) in Contemporary Art. She works from her studio at Bow Arts doing portraiture on commission as well as expanding her own practice. Her work is in private collections internationally. When she is not busy at her studio she is a research assistant to academic art writers and curators. She also contributes her own writing to art publications. Lauren Mele lives and works in London, she was born in France (1986) and has been living in the UK since 1996.