Aziza Mills
I paint images appropriated from the media, upon which I impose a regular, but rather arbitrary pattern, through a kind of "selective pixilation". Some may read this as a hostile barrier, others as an artificial disruption of a naturalistic snapshot, drawing attention to the flatness of the canvas. Either way, the painted result is rigidly mechanical, creating a tension between detailed realism and vastly simplified near-abstraction.
The subject matter of my source material is not of primary importance. I choose images essentially for their visual dynamism or striking composition. Lately I've been selecting "boys' stuff": sport and fighting, specifically. I hope to demonstrate an emotional distance from the actions in the scene, a personal disengagement, whilst painting, paradoxically, with an almost fanatical degree of precision and care. The creative process is intensely laboured, fastidiously controlled and very time consuming: each composition is meticulously plotted with ruled lines at the outset. But in spite of this punishing restriction of expression, the works are lovingly laboured; their repetitive order bordering on the obsessive. There is huge personal satisfaction in completing a work, each square set cleanly and decisively in place.
Biography
1981 Born in London
2001-2004 Wimbledon School of Art, BA (Hons) Fine Art: Painting
2000-2001 Kensington & Chelsea College, Foundation Diploma, Art & Design
Exhibitions
November 2004 Toni Heath Gallery, London
2004 Guildford Arts Autumn Group Exhibition, Clyde & Co, Guildford, Surrey
2003 Hans Brinker Budget Trophy Exhibition, Amsterdam
2003 Guildford Arts Autumn Group Exhibition, Clyde & Co, Guildford, Surrey
2003 BHF Bank Group Exhibition, City of London
2002 Corporate Edge Group Exhibition, London
2001 BHF Bank Group Exhibition, City of London