LEE-ANN HEATH
LEE-ANN HEATH, Hello Yellow
Oil on canvas, 110 x 150 cm
Lee-Ann Heath’s lush botanical paintings stem from her love of impasto and nature. Using her surroundings as a point of departure, Heath draws on inspiration both natural and relational. Heath’s goal is to recreate, analyse and deconstruct sensation.
When working with thick paint, the challenge of finding the balance between confident brush and palette knife strokes and moments of vulnerability, becomes integral to Heath’s process, with the continuous rearrangements of colours and forms lifting and enhancing each other, layer upon layer. The work reflects an obsessive urge to find the ‘right’ combination of colour, line and shape. As Heath explains: ‘I find the elements of surprise and unexpected accidental moments exciting, and when the accidental meets the intentional it often leads to the identity of the work coming into its own.’
Heath’s canvases have the distinctive mark of the artist’s hand; the thickly layered paint has been manipulated in a sensuous manner by her palms or fingers. This technique gives the images a three dimensional, almost culinary quality, the paint’s appearance reminiscent of icing on a cake – and almost good enough to eat. This invitation to an intense sensory interaction is carried through Heath’s practice, making her artworks textured, tactile and dynamic.
LEE-ANN HEATH, Tuuu-lips
Oil on canvas, 135 x 75 cm
Lee-Ann Heath’s lush botanical paintings stem from her love of impasto and nature. Using her surroundings as a point of departure, Heath draws on inspiration both natural and relational. Heath’s goal is to recreate, analyse and deconstruct sensation.
When working with thick paint, the challenge of finding the balance between confident brush and palette knife strokes and moments of vulnerability, becomes integral to Heath’s process, with the continuous rearrangements of colours and forms lifting and enhancing each other, layer upon layer. The work reflects an obsessive urge to find the ‘right’ combination of colour, line and shape. As Heath explains: ‘I find the elements of surprise and unexpected accidental moments exciting, and when the accidental meets the intentional it often leads to the identity of the work coming into its own.’
Heath’s canvases have the distinctive mark of the artist’s hand; the thickly layered paint has been manipulated in a sensuous manner by her palms or fingers. This technique gives the images a three dimensional, almost culinary quality, the paint’s appearance reminiscent of icing on a cake – and almost good enough to eat. This invitation to an intense sensory interaction is carried through Heath’s practice, making her artworks textured, tactile and dynamic.
Specialists in contemporary art from South Africa. Established in 1913. South African artists are part of the global conversation. We seek to make their voices heard.