Etiquette, an exhibition of recent paintings, by artist Anna-Lise Horsley took place in the Hostry from 6 July until 30 July 2022.
Anna-Lise Horsley is half Norwegian but has spent most of her life in the UK. She has worked in studios in New York, London, Budapest, Norway and France. Her current studio is in Norfolk, close to the North Sea. She has exhibited in Britain, USA, France, Scandinavia and Hungary.
Anna-Lise says that her life as a painter is probably an escape from the real world. Painting is what she has to do to be herself. She plays a lot in her work but also takes risks and frequently destroys elements. It has to feel like a risky adventure.
She works on several pieces at the same time so that ideas can fly around in a free and unrestricted way. She is interested in discordant space and incompatible imagery. Each painting should have something new, usually unplanned and experimental - this new thing forms a step up to the next work. Anna-Lise is trying to uncover energies for which we do not have words, she calls this, ‘visual thinking’.
Successive layers can be transparent veils or thicker paint…an accumulation of impulses, actions and imagery. Things happen through the process. Smaller paintings cover the studio walls forming a massive sketch book only to emerge as elements in bigger paintings.
Anna-Lise's paintings seem to jump off the walls. They aim to give people a sense of enjoyment, discomfort, comedy, elegance and beauty.
