Art for Change: A Loraine Leeson Retrospective

Loraine Leeson

A Space Main Gallery

May 4 – June 9, 2007

Supported by: The British Council

Copresented by: Trinity Square Video, Mayworks

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This solo retrospective exhibition celebrates Loraine Leeson, an artist whose work has influenced and worked towards social change in East London and beyond for over 30 years. Showcasing photo-montage posters, large-scale images, audio-visual, digital and online work, the Toronto exhibition also includes contextualisation by artists and long time friends of Leeson’s, Carol Conde & Karl Beveridge. Several years ago a team of German researchers initially investigated Leeson’s practice in depth and developed an exhibition exploring her process-based approach and artworks from the public domain. This show opened at the Neue Gesellschaft fur Bildende Kunst in Berlin in November 2005 and has since toured to the UK, where it was exhibited at SPACE Gallery in East London in November 2006.

Biographies

Loraine Leeson is a visual artist based in East London (England) whose practice since the late 70’s has centred on the exploration of art as a catalyst for social change. This has involved engagement with trade unions, tenants and action groups, local communities and young people around issues of regeneration and identity. She has co-founded and directed organisations for this purpose including the Docklands Community Poster Project, The Art of Change and currently cSPACE.