Lexi Strauss

Often, touching upon themes of contemporary education and parenting, I explore the complexity of our interactions with belief systems and processes of individuation. Combining paintings with specious, fluid, personal fictions and political narratives derived both from interviews and imagination, my work tracks the escapism and paradoxical self-segregation that come from a distorted desire to belong.

For example ‘The Vulnerable Party’ (paintings 2013-16) concerns the search for a supremely divine clown leader– humane, genuine and open, with strengths and weaknesses exposed. It’s also a personal journey, a process of individuation, which will ultimately atomise the political party, or movement (since individuation is incompatible with the ‘party political’ concept), thus reducing it to a one-person campaign, without cabinet or voters.

In addition to my core painting practice, diverse recorded conversations are sometimes performed using a ‘verbatim’ (documentary) acting process to engage with people in depth. This process has also led, on occasion, to my ventriliquising paintings. Playfully theatrical installations using projections allow objects or subjects within the imagery to breath, speak and sing collectively or as indivi...

Royal College of Art
MA Painting