Lisa Younger Conceptual Statement

My artworks are sliced and coloured by hand using an assortment of papers, watercolour pencil and wood glue.  Paper is a versatile and accessible material which offers me a wide range of possibility when I make.  My process combines theatrical model making techniques with improvisation.  The shapes that I cut function to reveal things that exist beneath the surface and to spotlight a small part of the complicated, layered and dense world that we live in. 

This artwork is from my series titled The Well-Trodden Path, and references the veld grass and wild flowers captured in a set of photographs taken by me during treks into The Kruger, Marekele and Golden Gate National Parks during the winter and summer seasons of 2023 and 2024.  

I am particularly interested in exploring themes around memory, senescence (agedness), trekking and temperature.  The discomfort that I feel living inside my own ageing body, with its decaying cellular infrastructure and broken menopausal thermostat, is reflected in the ongoing war on life that I see in the world around me.   

As I take the time to meticulously place and replace pieces of paper into meaningful positions, I stubbornly stop to linger on a well-trodden path back towards my divinity.  Nature will eventually eat me, leaving my tangled and knotted memories to wander about in the windswept winter grass.  It is the start of another hot, ever dawning, glory gobbling day.