Artist
Frances Lightbound
How are spaces conceived, shaped and encountered? What social and political structures are encoded within built environments, and how do we navigate these on a day-to-day basis? Can we cast a critical eye over our environments, whilst retaining our capacity for wonder and reflection?
From a background in printmaking and a sustained interest in architecture and public space, I have developed an interdisciplinary practice that encompasses image-making, sculpture, fibers, site-specific installation and, more recently, language-based work. My work focuses on the poetic and the socio-political content of built spaces, and I choose materials and processes on a project by project basis – both for their critical relationship to her subject matter, and their capacity to spark visual and haptic curiosity. I often make use of recognisable objects and symbols as a starting point from which to subtly reframe or question aspects of the everyday. However, some projects adopt a greater degree of abstraction: recent, large scale work in cyanotype considers the relationship of the analogue photographic process to architectural blueprints, and references (and in some cases, is directly created by) the interplay of natural light and architectural space.
I encourage dialogue around how commissions might take shape, and what they may respond to – whether an idea or premise, a text, space or site, or simply an affinity with a particular process. Studio and site visits are welcomed.