Author Archives: lauravantatenhovegmailcom

Memento Mori; Remember You Must Die Reflections on my Mother’s Passing, Doha Airport,  5th May 2024 I have just returned from my second trip to Australia in 3 months..a record for me in my 22 years living in the UK. Sadly the most recent trip coincided with my mum’s death. Three weeks ago I receivedContinue reading ““Embracing the Inevitable: Exploring the Concept of Memento Mori in the Context of Life and Death””

Some of you may have seen a recent post I put out on Facebook and Instagram where I juxtaposed a quote about intestines from Kafka by the Shore by Haruki Murakami with a sculpture I made of the same motif? I’m so fascinated by the replication and mirroring of forms inside our bodies with thoseContinue reading “Thought for Today”

I’ve been spending the past four days taking photos of these mannequin hands, copying Bridget Fiske’s fine gestures from our rehearsal last week. As with the mannequin dance based on Pena Bausch’s choreography, I am ending up with enough photos so create an animation much longer than the work I’m citing. In this process (andContinue reading “Time”

A beautiful observation from Hay from a group dance class where there were a couple of accidents with candles being knocked over rand then the subsequent clean up by all the dancers….. “When I knocked over the candle I thought ”I my god,” but then I thought, ”Oh good. We all get to come togetherContinue reading “Deborah Hay my body the buddhist”

Enjoying the fabulous paintings of Euan Uglow today…still lives carved out in colour and just the perfect amount of tension between abstraction and representation. So incredibly satisfying to look at.

Retard: delay or hold back in terms of progress or development. From the French retarder, Latin, retardare from re-‘back’ and tardus-‘slow’. I was thinking about my new project today, the seascape film, and what it is I am trying to achieve with this work. As with all my practice, there is is an allegiance toContinue reading “A counter-intuitive approach”

I’ve been thinking about those Magic Eye images that were so popular in the 90’s and the kind of vision that is required to see the hidden motifs within the patterns. It’s all about diverging one’s vision so that each eye sees separately. Our natural tendency is to allow the brain to converge this doubleContinue reading “The diptych and autostereograms”

“To see something in the present tense is very difficult. That is where the mystery and excitement is. “

At some level it feels like every painting is about learning how to paint (again) Like any profession it’s about developing skills and putting those skills to the test. One feels like a beginner every time one starts a new painting. Cezanne’s Portrait of his Son, is my favourite ever painting. In my eyes it’sContinue reading “Learning to Paint”

Unlike equality, equivalence is not about balancing the books. One thing is not subsumed into the other. In the world of equivalences there is room for quite radical (or incredibly subtle) difference. Materials (paint, wood, rock, skin etc.) maintain their integrity and there is the potential for new spaces, new sensations, and new ideas toContinue reading “Equivalence”