Gavin Lavelle

Lavelle creates playful and erudite mixed media creations - somewhere between exotic worlds and their impossible maps. Works could be seen as a contemporary take on metaphysics, asking questions of the world view, as did John Donne, Andrew Marvelle and other Elizabethan poets. The uncanny synthesis of collage and paint demands a second look.

‘These paintings are made using ink, watercolour, acrylic and collage on Arches and Saunders paper. There are found images and pieces of books, and Katazome and Chiyogame hand-printed papers. These Japanese papers are made with a traditional work-intensive process, as are the paintings.
I collect the images from a variety of sources: maps, bird books from the 1950’s, biology and botanical sourcebooks, historical and travel books and catalogues.’

‘it’s exciting to simply play with the visual conceit of creating a landscape, setting out its topography, placing trees, mountains, seas and lakes, villages, swellings and important buildings, birds, animals, bits of biology and references to economics and society, all the while keeping it as visually beautiful as I possibly can. I am fascinated by the ideas around history, colonisation, and an alternative imagination around how history might have turned out.’

BA Fine Art (Painting) National College of Art & Design Dublin 1991