User:ArtDataArt/Project 19: Laura Footes

Laura Footes (born 1991 in Birmingham) is an English artist whose work is "based on personal experiences, memories and imagination, nourished and enriched through observational drawing."

Lives and works in Margate.

Early life and career
Footes was born in Birmingham to a working class family, growing up close to the Cadbury factory in Bournville, on the borders of a council estate that led her cousins into drugs and prostitution.

Footes' father was an electrician and builder who had grown up in the Sparkbrook Irish slums in the 1950s. Her mother worked as a dinner lady. Footes praises her father's support and influence, which included constructing a studio for her and introducing her to crafts. "'He was always drawing, always designing, always making models, and seeing that from an early age was so strikingly different from all of the middle class parents around me that were very well educated, they had excellent minds, but they couldn't do anything with their hands.'"Classism within the art world, particularly within high art, pressured Footes to change the way she speaks."'I hid my Brummie accent to become an artist'"Footes' relationship with her origins has since come full circle, with her embracing her heritage in her work.

“Culture would be pretty bland if it was just one type of person always finding their way to the top. My story is: I’m female, I’m working class, and I’m from the Midlands. I deserve to have a voice in this.”

"I feel extremely proud to be from Birmingham now. I hid my accent and identity, and now its naturally coming back into my work, and I think the best work will come from embracing where I come from, rather than trying to be somebody else, and that takes time and courage." Laura Footes, Real Life, BBC Three A scholarship to the Royal Drawing School in London who were supportive in introducing people from working class backgrounds to the arts.

Whilst at .. Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, She bases her drawing partly on her experiences at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, “the largest military hospital in Europe”

Footes believes her hospitalisations simultaneously "separated [her] from the outside world" and "enhanced" her "senses in regards to [her] visual imagination." Recognised for "ghostly figures transcendently flowing through time in dreamlike urban and domestic settings" with subjects having "out-of-body experiences".

Diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease age 13, Footes lives with a hidden disability.

A multilinguist, Footes speaks English (first language (L1)), French, German, Polish, Russian and Spanish.

Solo

 * 2023 — Somewhere Else, SHRINE, New York City
 * "[In] Footes’ dreamlike paintings, she presents a cast of beautiful, ghost-like figures rendered flowing through time instead of bound to a single moment. Some of these vestiges are pulled from life– family and close friends– and others are dreamt in fantasy while convalescing at home."
 * "With everything laid bare for her audience, the uncomfortable moments, the daily rituals, and even our internal bodily systems, Laura Footes is able to share a unique and empathetic understanding of the complex nature of life and existence for us all. And through art, she demonstrates that we can turn our obstacles into inspiration if we choose."
 * 2018 — The Master, Margarita and The Artist, Pushkin House, London
 * A personal response to The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov encountered at the time of her diagnosis with an incurable disease - Crohn’s Disease at age 13, and the resulting constraints of living with debilitating chronic pain.

Invited artist

 * 2022 — Annual Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
 * Invited by the Exhibition Convenor, Robbie Bushe, for the 196th presentation. Footes exhibited her painting The Corpse Flower (2022) of an Amorphophallus titanum in bloom at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Painted in acrylic (as opposed to oil paint) and at home, due to the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns in the United Kingdom and the health effects of solvents, without her landlord's permission. Footes cites her father as an inspiration for her sustained use of artificial light.
 * "On a visit to Edinburgh to see an old friend who works at the Royal Botanic Garden, I came across the most unusual flower in one of their greenhouses. Titan Arum is it’s Latin name, and it is the largest flower in the world and only blooms once every 5-10 years and it opens its flowers at night and releases the most foul odour of rotting corpse (hence the name). I was enchanted by the idea of this dormant monster. The seductive horror of the plant reaffirms my awe of the natural world including the chaotic dysfunction of organic matter in the human body, as I have lived with a debilitating intestinal disease since I was 13. Due to my disease and background in modern languages and literature studies, I am naturally drawn to the macabre and gothic works of the late 19th early 20th century, as well as hammer horror, surrealists, David Lynch and European cinema. The Corpse Flower unites all of those things in one grotesque beauty."
 * 2023 — Special exhibition celebrating the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III & Queen Camilla, Christie's, London
 * Commissioned by Charles III to create a series of Margate Sunrises and auctioned in aid of the King Charles III Charitable Fund.

Group

 * 2024 — We Do Not Sleep, TKE Studios, Margate
 * Opened on International Women's Day with a ticketed dialogue between Tracey Emin and Katy Hessel in association with and in aid of charity Power of Women (POW) Thanet.
 * 2019 — Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
 * 2018 — Prince & Patron, Ball Supper Room, Buckingham Palace, London
 * Footes' drawing Memory of Bedford Square at Night (2013) was selected by then HRH Prince Charles for the exhibition, and laid out to the Prince's own designs. The exhibition was a feature of the 2018 Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace, to mark the 70th birthday of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales.

Other selected group exhibitions at Christie's (8 King Street, St James's, London and New York), Mall Galleries and Glyndebourne.

Awards

 * 2009 — DAAD Scholarship, University of Giessen
 * Awarded by the Embassy of Germany, London.
 * 2012 — Artist of the Day, Flowers Central Gallery, London
 * Selected by Celia Paul.
 * 2012 — Commissioned by David Kabiller, trustee of Terra Foundation for American Art
 * 2013 — External Assessment Board Prize, Royal Drawing School, London
 * Selected by Graham Southern, Sydney Picasso and Andrea Rose.
 * 201 — Commissioned by the English National Ballet for its Lest we Forget programme, part of the First World War centenary
 * 2013/14 — Derek Hill Foundation Scholarship, British School at Rome
 * 2013/14 — South Square Trust Scholarship, Royal Drawing School, London
 * 2014 — Selected, Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Mall Galleries
 * 2014 — Scholarship, Art Students League of New York
 * Trained under Robert Cenedella — a painter who was taught by German war artist George Grosz.
 * 2022– — TKE Studios Member, selected by Tracey Emin
 * 2023 — Commissioned by Charles III to create a series of Margate Sunrises
 * In honour of the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla. Auctioned at Christie's, in aid of King Charles III Charitable Fund.

Collections

 * King Charles III archive of drawings from the Royal Drawing School, part of the Royal Collection
 * Tracey Emin Foundation
 * Blavatnik Collection
 * Heyman-Moritz Collection
 * Rothschild Collection
 * Mittal Collection
 * Ömer Koç Foundation
 * Kabiller Collection, trustee of Terra Foundation for American Art
 * Marks Family Collection, trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art