Aaron W. Lacey

Profile

ORIGINAL
CONTEMPORARY
PAINTING

A Canadian artist that uses molding paste/gels and clothing..to create extreme tactile work.

Artist Statement
By Aaron W. Lacey

Science Based Infused Art (PIP)

I’m a self-taught artist and I create vibrant work that is a cross between painting and relief sculpture.

My work distinguishes itself, not only by the vibrancy of its color and extreme texture but also its “touchable” quality.

I believe in providing a visual and a touch sensory journey. Generally, paintings are intended to be viewed on a wall, and that is the limitation of its impact on the viewers. As a matter of facts, you are forbidden to touch the work. I, on the other hand, encourage you to gently touch my work…to invoke a sensory experience.

PIP = (Positive Imagery Projection)

Art is so much more than simply a pleasing visual experience. I believe the artist must encourage the viewer to “touch” the work. Nowadays, humans of all ages and walks of life are saturated with images all day long. A human brain can only sustain this bombardment of images for so long before the brain triggers a natural defense system of imagery block.

Imagery block is when the image is not retained within the viewer’s memory. It is not retained for the simple reason that he or she has not had a real experience relating to this image.

A complete experience is not only when you are enjoying an art piece through your eyes. When you touch the art a special connection happens, it is now embedded within you.

Stimuli are electrically encoded by “touch receptors” which are pressure points in your hands.

Receptive Field (Pressure Points)

Receptive fields within the hands….gently touch my various original pieces of art. This information (image) travels through the visual cortex, then the training frequency, thus creating PIP (Positive Imagery Projection).

PIP gives me the opportunity to have my art retained within the hippocampus located in the brain. This memory of my art (image) is now long- term. It is indeed embedded, even infused in the brain.

I believe that my concept and approach to art will bring the experience of viewing painting and art to a level unexplored until now.

Aaron W.Lacey
December 2007

“An artist’s born addiction is to create”
-Aaron W.Lacey

-Special to The Hamilton Spectator- April 2003
Some galleries have guards to make sure you don’t touch the art. Aaron Lacey encourages you to touch his art, as long as you do it gently.
The Hamilton artist creates large, vibrant works which are a cross between paintings and relief sculptures.
Like paintings, they are executed on canvas using acrylic paint and are meant to hang on walls. Like reliefs, the images are raised and so textural that they cry out to be touched. He uses molding paste to build up his shapes, sometimes adding stiff fabric to bulk things out.
Lacey’s highly tactile surfaces celebrate shape and colour. Some compositions are abstract, others are dominated by forms resembling flowers.
In Omnipotence, for instance, a huge gold and purple floral form takes up most of the space. Lines of various widths crowding on to one another emanate from a prominently raised center like the boss of a shield or a sun. The green edges diffuse into loosely curving forms. The result is an image infused with energy, as though it is bursting or exploding.
In another work, Lacey uses denim to bulk out the raised shapes. The denim looks like denim. In another work, though he plays with illusion. This monochrome grey canvas contains raised shapes made from molding gel which invoke melting steel.

-Regina Haggo, a former professor of art history at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.- April 2003

-PRESS RELEASE:-

Aaron W. Lacey creates remarkable artworks with a mixed media process that incorporates molding pastes, clothing and acrylic paint. While evoking consumer culture as in Pop Art and the untamed aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism, each piece has an individual character based upon the materials that he is working with. The petrified state of the fabrics appear nearly archaeological while its textures and folds create a visually dynamic force within the work. By varying his process Lacey is able to create a swath of fascinating effects, from bubbling metal to glistening flower petals. “My work is unique and rare because I have fused science, art and fashion,” he states. “All my work has texture for the purpose of touch.”

Lacey is a graduate of the former Canadian Forces School of Intelligence & Security (CFSIS), and in the absence of a formal artistic education he has certainly blazed an exceptional path. His works have been acquired by numerous advertising and production companies including such major companies as Labatt’s Brewery, ECHO Advertising, Bell Mobility Aaron W. Lacey lives and works in Beamsville, Canada.

-Angela Di Bello, Agora Gallery New York City, NY-Feb 2008

ARTisSpectrum Magazine Spring 2008 -New York City-

Canadian artist Aaron W. Lacey’s refined sculptural paintings create a compelling sensory experience for viewers. Lacey invites viewers to feel his work, challenging the conventional hands-off mode art experience and engaging people in the textural vigor of his object-like paintings. Reclaiming the genre of relief sculpture that famously decorated early Greek and Roman architecture and then flourished again among Neoclassicist artists, Lacey takes a contemporary approach to relief work.

His use of relief transforms eclectic, pop-culture-inspired textures into voluptuous tactile landscapes.In addition to his interest in sensory experiences, Lacey explores the world of fashion. He does not make art about fashion as much
as he transforms fashion into densely composed two-dimensional art objects. In his work, brand name clothes become cultivated compositions that question fashion’s usually social position. Rather than hanging on a body or a storeroom rack, metallic jeans join together to become their own self-contained organism.

Lacey has no formal art training, but he began exploring the
world of images as a child, drawing constantly and visiting galleries and museums. Motivated to establish his own, unique creative voice, Lacey has made an active effort to integrate science, fashion and art, three realms that often overlap but rarely unite as fully as they do in his work. His desire to unite these three realms led him to this multi-media aesthetic in which highly composed paintings are simultaneously touchable objects and unconventional
encasements of clothing.

His ability to lithely turn eclectic objects and images into
something else entirely is what makes his work intriguing.
In Lacey’s paintings, a demure, finely crafted relief is actually a tangle of pop culture references and mainstream clothing. Lacey’s work has been acquired by numerous high powered corporations companies such as GUESS?, Inc., Bell Mobility and others in the advertising and clothing industries. Born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Lacey currently lives and works in Beamsville, Ontario

www.artisspectrum.com New York City

-October 2008:-DONATION

Agora Gallery Presents :

Beyond Borders: Exhibition of Fine Art from Canada
Aaron W. Lacey, the Canadian fine artist presenting work in Agora’s Beyond Borders October 2008 exhibition will be donating 100% of the proceeds for his 2 pieces to Art Start.

-Johanna De Los Santos-
Emai: johanna@art-start.org

www.art-start.org (events)

&
Sentebale
Aaron W.Lacey , Canadian fine artist will be donating 100% proceeds of 3 of his pieces to Sentebale; a charity founded and under the Patronage of HRH Prince Harry and HRH Prince Seeiso of Lesotho.

For more information about Sentebale please contact:
Rebecca Deacon
Sentebale
Clarence House
London
SW1A 1BA
Reg Charity: 1113544
info@sentebale.org
www.sentebale.org

“Opening Reception Thursday, October 2nd-08”
6pm-8pm

Agora Gallery
530 West 25th Street
Chelsea, New York City , NY

www.agora-gallery.com ( Beyond Borders October 2008)

Aaron W.Lacey
awlstudio@gmail.com

Represented by:
AGORA GALLERY
530 West 25th Street.
Chelsea New York City,NY

www.agora-gallery.com

www.artisspectrum.com

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