For artist Audrey Lyall, art and fashion are both a question and a statement. Within her mixed media paintings, Lyall constructs an imagined world where her femme characters of color mirror the downfalls of contemporary beauty standards and at the same time highlight how the act of “dressing up” can lift one’s spirit. In this realm of glitz and glamour, the figures dress as extravagant as they’d like and capture the public’s attention as soon as they leave their doorstep. Like a local celebrity on the block where everyone knows their name. Their style and essence is unforgettable. They are Attention Seeking.
Lyall approaches the canvas like a fashion designer. Her characters are drawn as the classic 9 head figure, which creates a tall slim elongated body form. She uses tracing paper, cuts the outlines, and applies it on the canvas. This is reminiscent of the pattern making process in garment making. She creates silhouettes, cuts and sews, collages, drapes, and assembles garments with aesthetics, composition, and color palette in mind. This experimental artistic process results in intricately layered paintings. Her materials are sourced from her closet, the streets of NYC, and even her local beauty supply store.
Above all, the concept and the visual story the assembled figures and scenes tell is the most important intangible medium of them all. Lyall is interested in how we are all perceived and how one’s perception might be altered by the way someone is dressed and how they chose to present themselves to the world that day. She is interested in how the external beauty products, clothing, and accessories we apply on our bodies everyday can psychologically alter how we feel and how we are looked at - the gaze. The artist is also interested in the extremes and spectrums of beauty from makeup to plastic surgery to body piercings. From a global standpoint, she questions how each country and culture has their own set of beauty ideals and hierarchies of beauty based on how one alters their body and natural form. She thinks about the ways we are treated based on facets of identity - race, class, body size, skin tone, age, and so on.
