Leo fitzmaurice biography

Leo Fitzmaurice was.
Biography.
Rather than adhering to a specific medium or form, Fitzmaurice's practice is deeply rooted in a process of roaming and observation.

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Leo Fitzmaurice

British artist (born 1963)

Leo Fitzmaurice (born 1963 in Shropshire, England) is a British artist.

Biography

Fitzmaurice was born in Shropshire, England, in 1963. He studied painting at Leicester Polytechnic, Liverpool Polytechnic and Manchester Metropolitan University.^[1]

After leaving college Fitzmaurice moved away from pure painting and his practice eventually focussed on a strategy of intervening in already existing objects, materials and situations, a way of working which continues to this day.^[1] Some of his earlier work was shown at EASTinternational^[2] in 1995 where one of his pieces was purchased for the Arts Council Collection.^[3] Also after graduating Fitzmaurice developed an interest in working in non-gallery situations by co-organising a number of 'artist-led' projects such as All in the Mind (1998), with artist Patricia McKinnon Day, which took place inside a disused mental asylum;^[4] and Up In The Air/Further Up In The Air (1999–2004) with artist Neville Gabie, which used tower b

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Northern Art Prize

Carol Huston analyses the recent announcement of Leo Fitzmaurice as the 2011 Northern Art Prize winner.

Northern Art Prize 2011. Leo Fitzmaurice. Photo David Lindsay

As announced at Leeds Art Gallery, the fifth winner of the Northern Art Prize was Shropshire-born artist Leo Fitzmaurice (born 1963). Besides pronouncing the fact that painting is repeatedly shunned by art judges generally, perhaps the appeal of Fitzmaurice’s work for the prize was its deconstruction of the everyday as part of a greater British legacy which embraces the mundane. Fitzmaurice both used this approach within an institutional context – reworking a gallery space- as well as with the external world – through stills of quotidien urban life.

Since the prize was given to an artist who rethinks the ordinary, perhaps this indicates the North’s regional taste for the familar. Or, perhaps if we may consider the North of England as a burgeoning centre for contemporary British art- the appeal of Fitzmaurice to the panel of judges is that his work recalls a legacy of early to mid- twentiet

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Rather than adhering to a specific medium or form, Fitzmaurice's practice is deeply rooted in a process of roaming and observation. His focus invariably centres on the everyday—the subtleties so common they are often overlooked. Through the use of found and discarded items, Fitzmaurice confronts themes of consumerism, the repercussions of mass production, and the physical structures onto which information is placed, presented, or contained. Previous bodies of Fitzmaurice's work have explored a diverse range of materials, including discarded Coca-Cola cans, plastic shopping bags, abandoned cigarette packets, and promotional flyers—each imbued with a sense of disposability that contradicts their enduring impact on the environment. By reworking and manipulating society’s unwanted debris, his works prompt reflection on the subtle structures that hold information within the public realm, as well as their evolution over time. Evoking a continued relevance that mirrors our culture's burgeoning consumption of entertainment, Fitzmaurice's work highlights the tension betwe