In her dreamlike paintings, Lacey sets out to explore the erosion of memory and the movement of time. Her paintings are a mishmash of real and imagined places, with discarded remnants of lives and stories scattered about.
“Lacey Bryant creates a pervasive ambiance of both nostalgia and estrangement, and familiarity with undercurrents of the unknown…Whereas with many paintings audiences examine what is on the canvas, it is far more intriguing in Bryant’s works to examine that peculiar disparity of what is seen and what lies just beyond; where connections are made and lost between these episodic vignettes: crows upon a set table for a tea party in the rain, or the anonymous figure braiding another’s hair on a bed in a field covered with snow. Each one of these small stories are at once fashioned together and fall asunder, grasping to be reformed into coherency from some time long ago.”
-Monique Delaunay. Editor, SF Art Enthusiast 2014
“Lacey Bryant’s paintings, like Lacey herself, have a massive presence within a small space. A keen observer of the patterns, connections and duality of all things, Bryant’s new series of paintings continue to depict the poetic beauty in the odd and disconcerting.
Her visual story telling can be described as a noir morality tale rather than a fairy tale. The ambiance is one of curiosity and trepidation…a foreboding dream in which the dreamer is lucid, consciously searching for the true meaning of their situation before they wake up. Her girls and boys are beautiful, not in the conventional tradition of perfect features, but rather because of their defiant gaze and confident stance that speaks of an age old wisdom in the soul, realizing too soon that childhood notions of a perfect world need to be set aside…
Creation and destruction, ego and soul, beauty and the unsightly all exist in natural harmony. The “other self’, (occasionally more than just two) occupy the same space on her canvases with only slight acknowledgment for each other. Therein lies the human condition we each grapple with. Within Lacey’s narrative, we see ourselves…our own duality of the beautiful and imperfect.”
-Anno Domini, 2012
About the Artist
Lacey Bryant is a bay area artist who paints in oils every day that she can and does some work in diorama as well. She is interested in exploring themes of place, time, memory and sacredness in her work. In her spare time, she paints sets for theatre and haunted houses and does a bit of sculpture and design for a production shop. She has a black cat named Hecubus and a tarantula named Calamity.
I really wanted to tell you how much I admire your work. The first time I came across it was about a year ago inside Psycho Donuts. There were lots of beautiful things on the walls, but your were by far the ones that meant more to me and plainly beautiful. I feel that a lot of what you do reminds me of two of my favorite painters, Frida and Salvador. Still your work is completely your own and it makes me feel alone and confused. I haven’t encountered many painting that actually trigger a strong feeling and yours are more then just that. I would love to hear what inspires you and what you think about when you paint them. I am an artist myself, but honestly I’m still looking for a way to put a piece of me on my painting, a way to take my passion a step further and really fall in love with my own work. If you have any comments or tips in how to inspire myself new ways or a way to explore new things, it would mean a great deal to me to hear from you. Thank you for your time. A big fan of yours, Arian.
Hi Arian, I’m glad you can relate to my work. In answer to your question, it’s hard to say exactly what inspires me. It’s more of a collection of things that are meaningful to me in some way, symbols that can be interpreted differently by different persons. I’m interested in communicating on an emotional and universal level, and there’s kind of that idea that as alone as we all feel, we are able to see ourselves in others, often through artwork we see that someone else is thinking about things in much the same way as we are and for a minute we feel a connection. Or perhaps you are even able to communicate a new idea or way of thinking to someone or even just help them to appreciate something ordinary in a new way. To me it’s all about sharing your viewpoint and relating on a level that is beyond words. There is this constant feeling of searching for something that I think is common to most of us, and especially as an artist, I think as long as you are always reaching for something that’s just out of reach then you’re on the right track! I think the thing to do is ask yourself, and not just once but constantly as your ideas will change: what am I trying to say? How can I say it in a way that is clear and yet interesting? I think it is easy to get too direct however. A little mystery is a good thing. If you spell everything out, you’ve done all the work and left nothing for the viewer. You have to let them in somewhere so that they can make the story their own. I guess you’re always straddling the line between the personal and the universal. Other than that, just don’t be afraid to experiment! Give yourself the time you need and work hard, the more work you produce the more you will begin to see yourself come through in a way that others will be receptive to. Happy painting!