M. Louise Stanley

The human condition, modern-day romance and political issues are often explored. Voyeurism, a longing to ‘be someplace else’ and a sense of places and events remembered are recurring themes. Humor is the catalyst and a bridge to darker, more troubling issues. In my youth I wanted to make paintings people would gag and cry in front of until I saw two women doubled-up laughing in front of my painting. At an opening years ago a woman came up to me, drink in hand, and said, “these are not funny paintings, they remind me of junior high when I was miserable.” She then dropped her glass at my feet and ran out of the gallery. At an opening at PS1 in New York, years ago, Joyce Kosloff commented, “God, lulu, your work is so American!” I strive for that precarious line between the colloquial and the sublime, perhaps in order to sabotage both extremes, but more often just to see if I can pull it off. Recent paintings are based on research gathered during European travels and the ‘Art Lover’s Tours’ I organized and lead for 14 years. An interest in the transformation myths of Ovid, sainthood, the ills of organized religion and current events are ongoing compulsions. Often the subject becomes a vehicle for experimentation (what can I learn from the painting of it) and an excuse for making an objet that refers back in time, ie faux painted Renaissance and Baroque frames with attached predelle. In the fourth grade I made an assessment: ” there is no magic in my mark.” I knew then that the subject would dictate how it would be painted. The magic probably lies more in the drawing, my first love.