Broughall, Lee

Statement

Lee Broughall is an artist, originally from Luton, currently living and working in Farnham, Surrey. He is the Galleries Officer for the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, University for the Creative Arts. In 2009, he was one of the artists selected for the Jerwood Contemporary Painters exhibition. He graduated from the University of East London with a first class BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 2006.

Broughall's paintings are characterised by a consistent use and combination of certain materials and processes. The working process starts as a palimpsest of discarded remnants from previous paintings and projects. Constructed by repetitively layering varnish, homemade oil paint, and studio debris, the paintings are collections of momentary actions built up over an indefinite period of time. Prompted by interactions with architecture, historical information, and found objects, these works offer evidence of human existence, exhausted action and abject isolation.

Exhibitions (as artist)

01/2012	How we experience the animal (group show) Ark-Art, Bexhill
01/2010	Jerwood Contemporary Painters (group show) The Gallery at Norwich University College of the Arts
11/2009	Jerwood Contemporary Painters (group show) Summerfield Gallery, Cheltenham
08/2009	Jerwood Contemporary Painters (group show) Project Space Leeds
04/2009	Jerwood Contemporary Painters (group show) Jerwood Space, London
03/2008	Back to the Boondocks (group show) AVA Gallery, University of East London
11/2007	AF:2012 (ALISN group show) 491 Gallery, Leytonstone, London
06/2006	Fine Art Degree Show (group show) University of East London
12/2005	Immediately with the Masterful (group show) Ada Street Project, London
10/2004	Group Show (group show) University of East London
06/2004	Went The Day Well (group show) Mile End Ecology Pavillion, London
05/2004	...Br-onze... (group show) University of East London

Exhibitions (curatorial team)

01/2012	Helen Benigson: Palm Trees and Poker Players James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
10/2011	Jaakko Mattila: Lowest Common Denominator James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
07/2011	Who is Jack Coutu? James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
07/2011	ReCollection James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
01/2011	Marko Dutka: Baroque and Roll James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
10/2010	Peter Rush: New Ground James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
10/2009	VJ Moreton: The Theatre of the Naked Eye James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham
11/2008	Claire Morgan: Periphery James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham

Reviews

"Lee Broughall is a young painter based in Surrey, and a 2006 graduate of the University of East London. His most recently completed series of four large-scale works employ the repeated motif of a misshapen disc floating on either a red or black backdrop. The discs contain blotches and other impurities that are reminiscent of the swirls and patterns of a planet's surface, like the famous Great Red Spot on Jupiter, and the planetary allusion is especially clear in 'Flag', where a three-dimensional Union Jack has been appended to the fiery red surface of the disc, rudely jutting out into the privileged space of the viewer. These are arresting and intelligent paintings.

"In three of the works, the disc sits at the bottom, or towards the bottom of the canvas, where it appears to float heavily, and 'Work no. 132' appears particularly ominous: a white blood cell in a sea of red. There is a violence to the handling of the paint throughout these works, which comes in fits, stabs and splashes, and this aspect is enhanced in two of the works by the addition of three-dimensional lettering, reading 'Burns' and 'Boom Boom Room', the latter apparently a piece of club signage or perhaps part of a jukebox. The disc in 'Boom Boom Room' is a sickly pale green, like a monstrous growth, and evinces most clearly Broughall's own brand of painterly abjection.

"Iconography aside, Broughall is attuned to other issues in current painting, and places a special emphasis on formal repetition, the notion of the series and, most importantly of all, the process of painting itself, which he finds to be a pressing concern in the work of other influential British painters like Callum Innes. He states: 'For me, the inspiration comes mostly from the act of painting.'"

- Bill Roberts, Saatchi Online Critic's Choice, Sept 2007



"INERT-paintings - via a sensual, repetitive use of materials, actions, Signs + Iconography... The supports he 'litters with incident' are drawers and containers that receive 'daily deposits' that Reflect on the Repetitive nature of work in the studio..."

- Alexis Harding, 2006