The immersive art exhibit blending painting, music and memory

Talking about their shared creative impulses, Anna Liber Lewis explains, “We were both influenced by how we move through the world and the people and things close to us…” The installation, will be a multi-sensory experience, where the audience should feel able to move freely, and dance if they want to, it aims to disrupt the idea of the “white cube space” exhibition, ubiquitous across the contemporary art scene. Liber Lewis’s paintings are expressive and full of emotional content.

Talking about her work, she observes, “Each painting comes from an encounter. I am interested in this moment when something shifts: a metamorphosis that happens sometimes physically; sometimes emotionally, manifested in behaviour, body language and visual signs, a shape shifting.” Liber Lewis frequently begins her work with a strong central symbol or gesture, working from it and around it, adding layers upon layers, painting out and painting over until she senses the piece is finished.

Her painting practice is both intuitive and instinctive, informed by movement of the body and tuning in to the internal landscape. Bold symbolic images become tethering points for the emotional register of the moment, as painter Ansel Krut says, “They are challenging images, often confrontational, often comic, often sensual… There are complex narratives in the paintings, and veiled and unveiled allusions, erudition and reference.”

‘Muscle Memory’ will run from 18 January to 17 March 2019 at Elephant West, elephant.art/west.