Urban Expressionist, Lee Wareing,
Fine Art
Contemporary paintings
Mass Shooting, Human Stencils
United in Colour, Human Stencils
Mass Shooting, Human Stencils
This project is my biggest to date measuring 27ft across by just over 8ft tall. It was my latest attempt to break free from the limitations and confines of the canvas and explore alternative means of creating traditional cut out stencils. By using people as stencils and water pistols to apply the paint, the piece created a great social element that had a deeper impact than the work itself. Using action painting to create an interactive element to this painting brought people together from children to adults, art and non-art backgrounds and it was a chance for people to get together and directly affect the outcome of the painting.
Created by Lee Wareing, Urban expressionist and the local community.
Click the link to see the creational process.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
United in Colour, Human Stencil Trials
This was my 1st trial to find out if using people as stencils would work. I used paint fired out from water pistols and people as stencils in an attempt to break away from traditional stencil making techniques.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
United in colour, Human Stencil outcome
The end result of using people as stencils. Special thanks to Milly, Toby and everyone else who got involved.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
Click the link to see the creational process.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
Skin Deep 2
Skin Deep 1
Skin Deep, computer edit
Skin Deep 1
The Skin Deep series is an attack on superficial beauty. It has been painted over what some people may think is a beautifull wall paper with the eyes and mouth gauged out to imply that if you look beyond peoples external beauty you will find the real beauty within. The painting has been painted from top to bottom with water-pistols to allow the paint to dribble down to paint the lower half of the painting. It is my largest painting to date and stands 8ft tall and just shy of 8ft in length.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
Skin Deep 1
This piece was inspired by the collage Skin Deep but had to be slightly edited to make it work as a painting. This in turn changed the true meaning of the work and given it an aggressive nature but at the same time loosing the true nature of the collages original intent.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
The Fall and Rise of Nelson Mandela
Skin Deep
The collage Skin Deep is an attack on the fashion magazines relentless assult on our beliefs of what beauty should be. They constantly barrage people with images of models that are size 0, perfect facial features and unblemished skin without a care in the world about the consequences that this has on society. Many people feel bad enough as it is without this constant pressure, but with being force fed inaccurate (air brushed) images this eats away at their self esteem. As a result there are people that pile on the pressure upon themselvs to perfect their bodies leading to severe eating disorders such as Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge eating and various other mental health related eating disorders.
By attacking the facial features of this model I am stating that the truth of beauty is not on the surface as many would like us to believe. Underneath the scraped away eyes and mouth is a picture of what some would consider a beautifull wallpaper which invites the viewer to look a little deeper. This also implies that if you look beyond the surface and take a deeper look, that is where you will find a persons true beauty. It is within our hearts, our souls and our minds.
The top left image has been chosen for a few reasons; the first is to highlight that this was a very real campaign against Nelson Mandela and is a reminder of the past unfair and unjust prejudices against the African nation by the white minorities. The passage below is a just a few of the laws that were passed to control the non-whites living in South Africa during the apartheid regime.
The second reason is to unsettle the viewer, to draw you in or even to anger you and in doing so I hope that this painting will stay with you for some time so that we can remember how easy it is to get things completely wrong, to wrong our friends, our neighbours, our families and the people of this great planet.
The top right image has been chosen as Nelson Mandela spent 27 years incarcerated and the bulk of that he spent on Robben Island. Even as a prisoner Nelson Mandela and the other Black South African people suffered persecutions beyond all the other prisoners of Asian or mixed race minorities. This came in the form of meagre food rations, short leg pants and a great deal of restrictions placed on them.
The bottom left image is a symbol of people power, of how we as individuals are relatively powerless compared to a collective, which has a voice. In using this image I am attempting to show that as a collective we have a voice and the power to make real changes in the world around us.
The bottom right image represents that despite many years of oppression and subjugation people can still find the strength and determination to overcome cruelties, to make their own moral decisions not for revenge but for compassion and acceptance.
Nelson Mandela overcame many obstacles whilst showing great courage, determination and tremendous compassion for others. I believe he is a beacon for humanity and sign of what can be achieved if we work together. These are the differences that can be made if we couldall put our differences aside and try not to overcome each other but accept that we are different and try to understand these differences.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
Breaking the Chains collage
Breaking the Chains
Breaking the Chains-apartheid
Breaking the Chains collage
The original collage that I fell in love with and decided to create paintings from. It was originally a hunt for strong imagery and led to the painting Breaking the Chains immediately to the left of the collage. The more I thought about this piece the more it seemed to represent slavery (the chains being iconic of slavery) and this led me to start research into the apartheid regime in South Africa and eventually led me to create the third painting of the set.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
Breaking the Chains
This painting was inspired by the collage Breaking the chains. It was an image that i loved so much i just had to paint it. During the creation of this painting i started to think about the image a little deeper and during my spare time i started to investigate images of oppression which would inturn lead to a 2nd painting in the set.
By Lee Wareing, Urban Expressionist
Breaking the Chains-apartheid
This is the 2nd version of Breaking the Chains and i've delved a little deeper with this. It has been painted onto a back drop of newspaper headings and internet images relating to the South African uprising. The images were then aged by tea bagging, crumpling, tearing and burning them. This gives the impression that they have come from a war torn country.
The Backpacker light project.
The same idea as my stencil paintings only this time i have separated them physically by painting them onto perspex. This allows you to see through each layer to the next and rether than painting in different colours i have painted them all white and used lighting to create the different collours.