Interview: Lee-Anne Raymond (Surrealist Artist)
-
- July 9, 2012
Dark Princess of Imagery from Down Under
By Jason V Brock
Jason V Brock: Lee-Anne, for people unfamiliar with you and your work, could you please tell us a bit about your philosophy?
Lee-Anne Raymond: As an artist, atheist, and feminist I am interested in science, biology, the natural world, and in human endeavor and imagination. I am in horror of cruelty toward animals and humans. The right to freedom of expression affords us our individuality and right to self-determination whether male or female. What interests me, and is becoming stronger thematically in my work, is to challenge inequality, intolerance, and injustice.
Creating an imaginative, well-realized work is undeniably what motivates me to paint at all, and, as a Surrealist, I make use of the imagination to articulate an idea, an ideal, metaphor, or concept. I am as well interested in the psychology of control and confinement. My figures are always isolated in some sort of struggle against a self- or externally-imposed stasis. Some suggest it is too personal a view, others, too distant; my figures tend to look away from the viewer or are viewed from the back, and this is more to create a notion of other, rather than “self” or “myself.”
Brock: When did you start doing art? Were you always interested in the macabre and fantastic? What draws you to the imagery that you create?
Raymond: I began practicing art proper after meeting Demetrios [Vakras]. We’ve lived together since 1984. The first oil painting that I will own up to was completed in 1988. I had always…
[For the complete interview, BUY THE MAGAZINE, OR SUBSCRIBE!]
Related articles
