Kirsty Lorenz, Votive Offering No.81, Apple
SSA Professional Member Kirsty Lorenz is premiering her ‘Floresce’ – meaning burst into flower – exhibition this October at Forfar’s Meffan Gallery thanks to a prize awarded by the Society of Scottish Artists.
The exhibition sees Kirsty develop her central theme of flower painting in new directions with three themed multi-media installations. Prayer, which takes her hugely successful Votive Offerings – an ongoing work of depicting wild posies – in new directions with prayer flags and sound scape, highlights the meditative, prayer aspect of making posies and is itself a ‘prayer’ for the future of our natural world.
Gift, is a film focusing in Kirsty’s experience of sourcing flowers in Orkney, then drawing and painting them to produce a finished work – viewers are encouraged to engage with the process of accepting a gift with an accompanying flyer of the finished painting. Picked, carries on the Orkney posy theme with six paintings and accompanying films which capture the moment of picking a flower from its natural setting and the resulting space it leaves behind.
Kirsty said: “My work is developing from traditional flower painting –which I’m probably best known for – to a much more multi-media approach and experience. Floresce is particularly exciting for me as it builds on from the success of Votive Offerings and explores the theme of sourcing wildflowers in the Scottish landscape and the effect of picking, assembling and translating the flowers visually.
“Visitors to the exhibition will also get the opportunity to see a range of ‘Votive Offerings’ paintings and drawings, a project which began in 2013, involving making and sometimes leaving posies of wildflowers around Scotland. I paint the posies sometimes actual size, and sometimes very large scale in my studio and there are now 83 in the collection.
“Although I love my railway station-based studio, I’m really looking forward to exhibiting in the gallery, and seeing such a large body of my work exhibited all together in a public space”
Sharon Quigley, President of the Society of Scottish Artists, said: “We are delighted to see Kirsty’s new exhibition. Over the years, the Meffan Gallery has offered exhibition space to contemporary artists through awarding The Meffan Gallery and Museum Solo Exhibition Prize at the Society of Scottish Artists Annual Exhibition held in Edinburgh’s RSA Buildings on Princess Street every year. Kirsty is just one of a list of very talented and original artists who have benefited from the generosity and support of the Meffan. Every year our Annual Exhibition receives thousands of artwork submissions from across the country, being selected to exhibit and then selected for an award from among the hundreds of artworks on show is a real achievement and Kirsty should be very proud of her success.”
Floresce will be at Meffan Gallery, Forfar from 7th October to 4th November before moving on to Montrose Museum between 11th November to 16th December.
For more details on Kirsty’s work, visit www.kirstylorenz.com