The underlying aim of my artwork has always been to convey particularly resonant subjective experiences that I have felt myself to others. This is what I take from works that have moved me – it is as if the artist has somehow managed to get me to see through their eyes. Intellectual notions can form a part of my work, especially when building upon the initial subjective spark. However, the triggering factor is rarely an abstract idea, but usually resides more in the heightened sense of reality as encountered in dreams and moments of clarity.

 

This is reflected for example in my photographic work, which has often featured scenes and artefacts from the nether world of industrial estates, construction and dual carriageways, which somehow seem to hover on the edge of reality, or between realities. At the same time I have focussed to a large extent on narrative film, a medium that I feel is particularly apt for directly conveying experiences unfolding in time, again concentrating on those that sit on the line between dreaming and waking, where the dream could possibly be everyday life and the waking something only occasionally glimpsed, and called a dream. Photography has formed the greater part of my more recent practice, but I essentially use whichever medium I find most appropriate for getting across the ideas I wish to communicate, and have for example exhibited sculptural and assemblage pieces.

 

Even as the medium and subject matter of my work varies, the foundation remains the striking of emotional chords. Having had industrial landscapes and objects as the subjects of my solo exhibitions so far, current strands that I am pursuing include creating narrative/conceptual photographic scenes that have a surreal element to them in common with my film work, and an in-depth look at how five objects in my refrigerator worked together to sound that elusive chime that I’m always hoping for from art, and life.

  

www.martinlau.net

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