Artist Statement:
Her Room, Paintings by Lisa Stokes 9 March - 12 April
Press Release
Having begun her career as a medical artist at the Marsden Hospital, Lisa Stokes moved to Plymouth in her early twenties and soon came into the orbit of the painter, Robert Lenkiewicz. Lenkiewicz had a prodigious talent as a painter and teacher, though he is often better remembered now for his extraordinary life. He created his own demi-monde of artists, models and vagrants for whom his studios became both shelter and academy. One of these, the tramp 'Diogenes', he famously embalmed after his death and kept in a cupboard. Lenkiewicz amassed one of the greatest private modern libraries of philosophy, theology and art. And then there were his affairs. Many hundreds of obsessive relationships chronicled in minute detail as if works of art in their own right, and which formed the subjects of most of his later paintings.
Lisa Stokes had never even painted in oil before meeting Lenkiewicz but studied with him until his death twelve years later. She quickly absorbed his disciplined academic technique and latterly emerged as a painter of exceptional depth and originality. For the first seven years of their relationship she was his model, muse and lover until she finally putting a halt to his demanding and consuming personality. Nevertheless he continued to nurture her talent and she benefited from the encouragement of an extraordinary teacher - a guide whose presence she still misses.
Yet their relationship mirrors that of other artists who had the misfortune or fortune to land the role of muse to another. In spite of the perceived domination of their partners, artists like Camille Claudel, Gwen John and Frida Kahlo all managed to develop their own unique voices. The course of Stokes's own creativity gives a fascinating perspective on a complex relationship in which the fragile imagination of a younger artist remains defiantly unbowed in the presence of another. As far as the outside world was concerned, the work of John or Kahlo may have been overshadowed by that of Rodin or Rivera in their lifetimes, but the blame for that may lie at the door of society rather than with the male artist. Perhaps, over time, the artist/muse relationship (that subject which has troubled art historians and feminists for the last forty years) may come to be understood in a new light. Talking to Stokes one is left in no doubt that in a such a relationship, the roles of artist and muse are enacted by both protagonists and as necessary for one as for the other.
To see paintings of Lisa Stokes go to: <http://www.jmlondon.com/pages/event/280.html>



2006 Catalogue text:

Lisa Stokes's studio is cramped. It is on the first floor of her house and you enter shoulder first, past six or seven large paintings stacked across the door, whilst others hang at angles higher up the wall. Some of the canvases are now all but discarded with nothing left but the shadows of abandoned ideas; in a few others the lifeless paint might be revived at a later date. More in evidence are two pictures still in their infancy and one tall, thin canvas that she has been considering for well over a year: a troublesome picture that has just started to come together and might be finished in time for her show.

The studio window looks down onto a walled garden with a child's green, wendy house at one end. Beyond the wall you see a new playground surrounded by rows of grey houses rising in steep terraces up one of Plymouth's many hills. On this cold February morning there is not a sound. Lisa's own small daughter, Rose, is away. Much like her recent paintings, there are signs of childhood everywhere, but no children. No shrieks or shouts, nor screeches of delight. Just a winter's silence and one senses the absence of noise acutely.

There is a painting of Lisa's leaning against a wall below us in her sitting room. So tall it is hard to imagine how it had ever got underway in such a space as this tiny studio; and so dark and haunting that it seems similarly impossible to have come from the hand of someone with such a cheerful temperament. The painting shows a hole fashioned from a clump of rough twigs and branches. It is called Nest: perhaps an abandoned child's den. Lying in the centre of the void is a doll and, above it, a yellow glove caught in the undergrowth. It is an extraordinary painting - something remarkable and haunting: a conjunction of objects that once seen will never be forgotten. And entirely responsible for the pathos that could be found in that view of the deserted playground.

Lisa's paintings can be chilling. She laughs about her dark thoughts as if they are things that arrive unsolicited: ideas and images that nag her relentlessly until she begins to paint them. An object and its environment can conjure very precise feelings in her mind, feelings impossible to describe other than by mapping them out on canvas and her success as an artist lies in that ability to convey those emotions so precisely. She admits that often these objects start innocently enough then take her down roads that she does not really want to travel. Yet to witness paintings as demanding and thrilling as those of Lisa Stokes compels one to follow her on the same journey. As with Goya, her work can be both beautiful and full of despair; emotions you do not need to confront, but somehow to discover them for oneself brings a profound excitement.

Lisa's parents still live on the farm near Kingsbridge where she grew up and she says her paintings still rely on that upbringing in the countryside. She studied graphic design at college and this led her to London where she worked for a spell as a medical illustrator at the Marsden Hospital. After two years she moved back to Plymouth where she discovered the artist Robert Lenkiewicz and his studio on the Barbican. "Completely out of character," she says, " I went down to his studio there and then and asked him teach me". At that point she was in her early twenties and had never painted in oil before. Lenkiewicz agreed and she joined the large number of vagrants, artists and models for whom he was teacher, mentor and often as not, lover. In return for becoming his model, he continued to nurture her talent until his death twelve years later. He had a consuming and dominating personality, yet he was an inspiring teacher out of whose shadow Stokes emerged as a painter of exceptional depth and originality. He provided her the confidence to handle the lonely job of an artist: not simply the matter of technical groundwork (for which he had a staggering ability), but preparing her both intellectually and psychologically for the task.

It was soon apparent to Lenkiewicz that Lisa had a unique voice as a painter. Having witnessed a group of intense self-portraits by her, he encouraged her to go 'deep-sea diving' and work solely from within her imagination - a pursuit he called private language painting. This led to a series of larger figures from her studio, based on herself, but seen no longer in a mirror, but in her mind's eye. It marked a dramatic change in her work, stripping away the pretty features of her earlier portraits and instead revealing an ageless figure full of innocence and defiance, those twin pillars of childhood. These paintings mark a distinct group of work between 1999 and 2002 and form the first section of this exhibition. In 2003 her daughter Rose was born, it was also the year of her first public exhibition, sadly a year after Robert's death. These events marked a distinct change in her work: still painting herself she saw herself as a presence rather than a figure; the subject had disappeared leaving only echoes of that same childlike persona. The title to this main part of the exhibition is 'Her Room' and represents all her recent work painted in between 2002 and 2006.

Seen together, this small exhibition represents a powerful body of work over a seven-year period. The paintings are at times quite disturbing yet they present a powerful and compelling beauty. Her Room is the first London exhibition by Lisa Stokes - the debut of a remarkable young artist.

John Martin, 2006
Lisa Stokes - Her Room