Lee Maelzer
Truth is Heresy

in The Magnificent Basement
128 Farringdon Road EC1R 3AP

This series of paintings of seemingly disconnected images are all based on my family's analogue photograph collection.

These photographs are chemically melted, the originals irrevocably destroyed. A small percentage of the altered photographs become the starting points for paintings, the rest are discarded.

The images, when treated in this fashion, become generic. A parade, a trip to the zoo, a loved one, some tablets for depression, a rollercoaster ride, a garden in bloom... along with all the little rituals and ceremonies that supposedly keep us hinged.

Clinging, as we do, to these symbols of time and persons lost, I was struck by the need to wring some meaning out of them, to simultaneously degrade and elevate them.

By freeing the photographs of their specific nature and crisp detail, their value and emotional weight is altered too.

The epic becomes episodic and vice versa. Mundane occasions are suddenly imbued with terror. Tragic events blurred and poeticized.

They are now anyone's memories and speak of the exhilaration and fear of the loss of the subjective self.

- Lee Maelzer


> leemaelzer.com


Photographs of the work by Iavor Lubomirov:

All works:
Lee Maelzer
Oil on canvas
2010


Two Monkeys



Ride



Liquid Trampoline



Da With Noodles



Wedding Cake



Why Walk?



Pride



White Balloons



Folded Umbrellas



Bird in Bush



Mirror & Sink




Public View Images by Nancy Elser:





Flyer by Jordan Dalladay Simpson: