BA (Hons) Fine Art
Maisie Mannering
Maisie Mannering’s work explores feelings of nostalgia through found and family photographs. A theme that is predominant throughout her work is a contrast of the mundane with the surreal, using domestic items such as televisions as an alternative to a frame; an object that epitomises childhood memory and nostalgia. Using mediums of digital collage and oil painting, her work seeks to paint the forgotten and the lost. Mannering uses techniques of painting in a traditional way onto canvas, but then subverts these through distortion of faces, creating an uncomfortable and eerie experience for the viewer.
Her work looks at the idea of creating relationships through painting the unknown, forming a relationship with the person in the found portraits through the process of painting. A fixation with the past is also seen within the paintings of childhood photographs. In doing this, she finds solace in the past, confronting memories and creating a personal narrative for her life. The motif of narrative runs deeply within her work, with a prior exploration of animation and storytelling; the attraction to forming narratives through visual imagery is seen within her portraiture and permeates the majority of her work.