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Telling Tales Exhibition by Lee Scott

Telling Tales Exhibition by Lee Scott

TELLING TALES EXHIBITION BY LEE SCOTT

Exhibition titled ‘Telling Tales’ by Lee Scott opening 6 October 2011 at DUT Art Gallery

The exhibition Telling Tales (in partial fulfillment of the Masters Degree of Technology in Graphic Design) by Lee Scott opens at DUT Art Gallery on Thursday, 6 October 2011.

Artist: Lee Scott
“Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.” Robert McKee

Exhibition dates: 6 October to 18 October 2011
Opening at 5:30pm for 6:00pm on 6 October 2011
Closes: 18 October 2011
Venue: Durban University of Technology Art Gallery, Steve Biko campus (first floor Cecil Renaud Theatre)
Gallery Hours: Mon-Thurs 8h30-16h00 Fri 8h30-15h00

As an artist and visual communicator, Lee Scott imbues visual symbols with her own meaning. She voices her perceptions of her social environment in her paintings. Her early influences in art stemmed from a Social Realist tradition and it is this need to reflect her observations in life to make social comment and this basic humanism that has prompted her practice over the years. Many of the symbols she uses are rendered in a pictographic style, like those of information signage design. She feels this graphic style of image depiction contextualises her meanings within twenty first century Southern African landscape.

The comments and interpretations of this pictographic depiction of objects and images in her paintings (over a number of years), has led her to create a visually articulated picture language. It has prompted her conceptualisation and formulation of a ‘visual voice’ and by producing a set of playing cards with pictographic images on them. She has developed a simple and playful approach to encourage people to share their stories. The cards, named PicTopic© function as creative prompts and subliminal triggers and their informal quality allows people to feel comfortable whilst telling their stories.

The narratives as told to her and presented at this MTech exhibition are painted re-constructions and have been gathered through the use of simple visual card prompts. She believes that playful ways to elicit response and to be able to tell one’s story are important. “Not all beings are verbally articulate, or able to put pen to paper successfully, nor paint a canvas in order to be ‘heard’,” she said.

Scott thinks that there are threads of common experience that link human beings together and her largely social nature determines that we express and share these experiences. The canvas is her voice and the narratives that she is drawn to, is inspired by and resonate with, have parallels that echo in her own life. Stories of the desire to escape; of homecoming, spiritual wonderings, fear, identity and sexuality are all ‘life’s experiences’ and find form as visual re-constructions.

As an artist, educator and researcher, she aims with this exhibition to illustrate how her research in the field of visual communication design has been “purposeful in creating a voice to express myself, improve my practice and in turn, create an alternate voice for others.” She believes that the ability to express oneself is fundamental to well-being and to personal growth.

The work is a series of installations that reflect the research and subsequent artifacts created in response to her study. Firstly, there is a body of work done prior to the development of the ‘PicTopic©’ cards. This includes paintings and movie clips. The clips are of people choosing cards and narrating their tales to myself at a public forum and a workshop done with DUT drama students. The second series of mixed media works were done in response to the stories told to me by people invited to play with the cards.

The third installation or body of work is indicative of a reflective and introspective response to feedback and critiquing of the card stories. Other movie clips include a studio self portrait and a hand drawn animation that is part of her latest body of work.

The artist, Lee Scott can be reached on:
031 373 3716
Mobile: 0722466085
E-mail: lees@dut.ac.za

For more information, please contact:
Francesca Verga
Curator, DUT Art Gallery
Durban University of Technology
Email: francescav@dut.ac.za
Tel: 031-3732207