The work: Lana Eileen, Green, 2022. Mixed media, 60 x 80cm. $450.Courtesy: the artist
On top of a blossoming music career, artist Lana Eileen has nurtured a practice that embraces mythological and psychical themes using photography and mixed media. Describing her works as possessing “an air of magic realism”, she has undergone residencies in Egypt, Iceland and the Arctic Circle to further her ability to make physical the intangible and unfamiliar. In her work Green, the artist has utilised a self portrait – a favoured subject for Eileen, given the introspective tone of her works – which she has altered using the irregular application of paint. Roughly applied patches of neutral tones disrupt the audience’s view of the figure, with parts of her torso seeming to dissipate into her surroundings. These painterly techniques aim to inhibit any straightforward interpretations of the work’s mood or sentiments, displacing the original photograph into a timeless space. Green also conveys a more familiar psychological element, in that it embodies the feeling of not being seen as we are by those around us, and the cognitive distance we have from even those who know us well. Emblematic of a deeply informed practice, Eileen’s work encourages us to look into the unknown, while the unknown looks back.