About
Artist statement
Welsh painter Lauren Venn works intuitively to create abstract compositions that celebrate moments of materiality, space and shape. Through her exploration of unpredictable processes and research into serendipity, Venn has discovered an appreciation for the aesthetic qualities behind abstract composition. She displays this by accentuating a contrast of flatness and texture. She manipulates the mark making in her work through conscious decisions to block out negative space which selectively highlights specific forms.
Venn’s key interests lay in the happy accidents that are born through the build up of these forms. The intricacies within Venn’s work are created with the use of rearrangement. Cutting through the mark making to divide space and confuse the process behind the work. She has taken this and developed her paintings into compositions that surround process and capture the compositional values of abstraction that has the audience question what the process is. A juxtaposition of chance through the unknowing end results of a painting and control, by making conscious decisions within an editing process. Venn’s intention is to bring the audience back to the moment these paintings were made, observing them for nearly as much time as it took for her to create them.
Creating a film would be the best and most beneficial thing that would be of use to my practice and relate to the key properties within my concept, which is process, abstract expressionism and spontaneity. After receiving feedback about how the audience might come to understand these aspects of the work, I thought to demonstrate this in a way that is easily digestible and enjoyable for an audience who was interested in learning more about myself as an artist. The video begins with still shots of the studio, introducing the work space that I have been in over the past 12 months, working alongside artist Aneira Thomas and Mia Roberts. I was shadowed by my good friend Seb Jones over the course of multiple weeks to document the making of my painting ‘Sebastian xxx’ that was later exhibited at our MFA exhibition, ‘Confab’, 2025.