Spotlight on: Karis Lambert
What are you currently planning for the degree show?
To be perfectly honest, I haven’t a clue. I like doing a few projects at once so that I can explore different themes that I’m interested in; I also get restless
using the same media - after re-upholstering a chair for two weeks painting is like a breath of fresh air.
However, the only problem with that is I don’t know which project will be stronger by the end of it, or has more potential to develop, or will dominate my portfolio. I can tell you that it will involve touch somehow, and the idea of attraction and repulsion in relation to touch and aesthetic sensation.
How has your practice changed since starting your degree?
Well, when I did my A-levels in Sixth Form, my art practice had always been about developing and showing off technical skill in drawing and painting. I worked a lot with ink and oil paint, and pretty much completely focused on portraits because I loved doing them and knew I was good at them. When I came to uni I wanted to explore something new, so I abandoned technical rigour, which had always taken precedence in my work, and started doing abstract collages. Since then I’ve delved into a lot of things including collage, painting, electronics and textiles. Now I’m back to painting women from Vogue on perspex, so it all comes round full circle I suppose.
What do you find most inspiring for your artwork?
We’re encouraged to visit galleries to “inform our practice” as art students, but to be honest I get much more inspired by my peers. Our art class is quite close and it’s always so refreshing to talk my ideas through with them and see what they’re up to. We have a similar attitude towards making artwork that I think is lost in the High Art white-wall-gallery-space world. We just want to make things that explore our perceptions about the world; our habits, the way we see, what we’re thinking about.
Just last week Molly showed me how to use a jewellery-making resin called Diamond Glaze with ink to create these amazing textures. Things like that really turn me on as an artist. To summarise, I learn the most from my fellow art students, and the more you learn, the more you want to make.
Which artists do you admire and why?
I came across Claude Parent recently at the Tate Liverpool as part of the Liverpool Biennial, where he had transformed the bottom floor into a crazy landscape using wooden ramps and fixtures. He’s actually an architect rather than an artist. He created this notion called Fonction Oblique which is essentially dismantling the notion that architecture should be made flat and level. He was so committed to this idea that he actually lived in a house he had designed like this until he was too old to cope with all the slanted surfaces. To have that level of commitment towards your artwork that you could essentially pledge your whole life to it…not a lot of people could do that. I think it’s fantastic.
What work of art do you wish you owned?
As in an artwork I want to have on my wall? Give me any Van Gogh painting and I could gaze at it for years. His irises, his corn fields, his orchards in blossom, his chair…even his portraits (which look a bit creepy) I would happily have on my bedroom wall. If anyone has been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam you will know what I mean - there’s something about them.
Do you remember the first piece of art you made that you felt proud of?
Yes I do actually. When I was in my young teens I drew this portrait with fire in the person’s eyes. It was a terrible picture, really all teenage angst and not much else, but at the time I was really proud of it. I think my satisfaction was also due to my Dad admiring it enthusiastically too. That was when I really became interested in making art for art’s sake. After that piece I kept drawing trying to recreate that essence in the picture that made it special to me, until eventually I got better and just carried on because I loved doing it. Luckily, I’ve improved a lot since then.
Where do you see yourself in ten years?
There’s always a worry when you study Fine Art that employers will snub your degree and you won’t be able to take the path that you want to. But hopefully in ten years I’ll be deep in a career that I’m passionate about. Being involved in festival management has interested me for some time now; I think that creating events for the public where they personally engage in artworks, whether it’s theatre, music or visual artwork, would be a very satisfying career, and where the arts should be heading. Art is nothing when it doesn’t involve other people, it might as well be in a drawer or an attic. So being part of something where you can provide new experiences for people would be great.
But realistically, I’ll probably be living with about five cats in a friend’s spare room at that point, which isn’t all bad either.
