Browsing through the internet, I found the Laurie Lipton’s web site. A great graphite artist, one of those artists you fall in love with at first sight of her work.. I was really shocked by the high quality of the drawings, by the techniques, details and imagination. You might also be shocked by the theme of the most drawings, but I found them genial approaches. A perfect Angelina Jolie portrait? No way. A point of view, a conception or a relief of an imaginary world. This is what Laurie’s work is.

I was born in New York and have been drawing since the age of four. I’ve lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, and have made my home in London since 1986. My work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the USA. I was inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School…. all that detail!! After trying to teach myself how to paint in the style of the 17th century Masters, I developed a unique cross-hatching drawing technique that matched their method of painting by building up form with thousands of tiny lines. Although tedious, the result was a beautiful, clear tonality and astonishing detail. It’s an insane way of drawing, though.

It was all abstract and conceptual art at my university. I cut my classes and sat for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling and Van Eyck. So even though I went to one of the best universities for art in the USA, I am self-taught. My weird way of drawing took a horrendous amout of time, but I was able to get the same kind of luminous quality that the Renaissance Flemish painters had achieved. My teachers tried to dissuade me and get me to “draw for drawing’s sake” and loosen up, but I knew what I wanted. I ached to make something no one had ever seen before with pencil.

Diane Arbus was another of my inspirations, and her use of black and white (the color of ghosts, memory and madness) opened up a world of possibilities for me.

See also her Myspace page