Laurence Karl Jansen

B.1981 Cheltenham Spa, United Kingdom

Lives and works in London

B.A Fine Art Painting, Camberwell College of Art, UAL, 2018

Jansen’s painting practice investigates the gestural and symbolic potential of mark making, rendering his collected images as imaginative compositions relative to architectural landscape and the figurative form. Traversing drawing, photographic field work, media sources and collage, narratives emerge that represent aspects of his search for meaning within political dynamics and psychological relationships to one’s environment. Fleeting images and virtual interconnectedness, work life and social interactions are composed almost as a facade or a step through the infinity wall as influence is drawn from his experience as a set builder and scenic painter for fashion and film in London. 

The figurative elements found in Jansen’s work explore many of his playful and painterly techniques that pay attention to the silhouette, the dispersion of colour and manipulation of line and layering, using paint on canvas. While appearing as supernatural or even occult studies the forces depicted by Jansen perform an aggregate of signs for the viewer to take agency and capture their own allegorical poesy.   

These compositions work on an international landscape during times of uncertainty, social change and cultural fragmentation, in order to accentuate our vulnerability to how ‘environment’ affects an individual’s mental and physical being. Situated on a fine line between utopian and dystopian landscapes he evokes suggestions towards the malleability of perception and identity, as these vivid works are devoted to re-imagining the world around us. Potentially seen as premonitions there is reference to a struggle yet also a strong desire for mutualism and symbiosis, within our social and environmental challenges.