Lisa Brice’s body of work, Well Worn, features a cast of female protagonists, engaged/absorbed in autobiographical acts of looking, and being looked at. Grooming, making up, stripping down, dressing up within the confines of domestic, private or veiled interiors, they are involved in self scrutiny, awareness, consciousness, affirmation, adoration, promotion, loathing, deprecation, defence, defiance, protection, reinvention, presentation. The mirror reflection reoccurs as a central property, simultaneously functioning as an alter ego and an imagined audience beyond the private, as well as formal device within the painting.
Brice incorporates re-imagined art historical references as well as those from popular culture, and digital media, where the hand held mirror is frequently replaced by a camera or more specifically a Smartphone, capable of producing a digital portrait of a mirror image with an unprecedented capability for dissemination and extreme narcissism. It’s a confusing state of affairs and in turn the paintings aim to disorientate the viewer in their own act of looking. Reflecting these repetitive rituals, the relentless recording of self and the multiplicity of media images, Brice incorporates offset printing techniques on a variety of surfaces in the paintings, allowing for several versions of the same motif.
