anita levering

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This painting-based research explores issues connected to chance and intentionality.

I am investigating the materiality of paint through addition, dissolution, and subtraction in the painting process to research transformation. This is achieved through controlled experiments with paint on canvas in relation to its exposure to various weather conditions and gesture. These (semi) autonomous material events reveal paradoxes and tensions between the structured and the organized, formlessness and disorder.

The elimination of artistic agency and exposure to environmental forces opens the work up to randomness and dissipation but at the same time it creates a universal symbolic and ideographic language.

My position is one of literally standing back and letting external forces enact the dissolution of the painting. I reclaim and intervene as an act of collaboration, thereby navigating the territory between intentional and unintended outcomes and the role of limited authorial control.

The work itself becomes the site of traces of an experience, a document of dialogue with environmental forces, drawing out new connections in the viewer’s experience.

This year I was awarded the Gordon Harris Art Supplies Prize 2010, this prize is for the most meritorious painting work submitted for examination by a student enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program at Elam, University of Auckland.

My work is held in private collections around the world including the Julian Robertson Collection and the James Wallace Arts Trust.

Links:

http://anitalevering.blogspot.co.nz/

http://pinterest.com/anitalevering/

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Awards

2011 - Second Runner up Paramount 20th Wallace Art Award
2010 - Gordon Harris Art Supply Prize for most meritorious painting work submitted for examination by a student enrolled in the MFA program.

Education

2010 - Master of Fine Arts, Elam School of Fine Art, Auckland University, New Zealand
1995 - Master degree, Interactive Multi Media,
co joint degree of Royal College of Art London, UK and Utrecht School of Art, The Netherlands
1990 - Bachelor degree, Image & Media Technology, Utrecht School of Art, The Netherlands
1987 - Bachelor degree, Fine Art Education, Amsterdam School of Art, The Netherlands

Grants

2006 - Creative Communities, Auckland City Council NZ

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