Lene Makwana is a Norwegian mixed media artist based in Perth, Western Australia. She attended Einar Granum School of Fine Arts and Kristiania University College in Oslo, Norway before receiving her BA of Arts; Illustration & Photography Design from Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. Her work mainly consists of collages, watercolour paintings, and digital collages, ranging from figurative motifs to abstract. Her quest seeking balance and fusion between figure and pattern has led her to explore patterns as a stand-alone element. The last few years she has been working around the theme, concept and mere meaning of the word: Construction. She works on local and international commissions out of her studio in Perth.
In the words of Mr Daljit Singh Sethi, Director, Aura Art Development Pvt Ltd
“Artist Lene Makwana, currently based in Australia, is one of the few blessed artists, who have while putting in all her talent and creativity passionately, to put together various rich resources of nature namely female figure – the symbol of creativity, the hands that create as well as pull others to higher levels of evolution, the colours and shapes that define creativity, the cosmic forces that operate all around – has entered the domain of Infinite by achieving a seamless fusion of all these elements in her artworks. Aura Art is proud to be associated with her first show in India and introduce her in The Art Enclave at Index Fairs 2017, as an artist blessed with rare ability and wish her God speed.”
In the words of Sushma Sabnis, Art Writer
The Feminine Angle
The intense works of artist Lene Makwana, a Norwegian artist, mesmerise the viewers. Lene has a commendable art background with degrees in fine arts, illustration, and photography design. This brings to her art works a sense of space and architectural elements which are rendered in stark graphic styles at times and in grid like patterned techniques in others. Her current subject in the ongoing series has been ‘Construction’ and its critical and metaphorical nuances. Apart from the actual architectural references, the works delve into a background of femininity. Female torsos and heads play a significant motif her works. Here the artist probably tries to bring out the woman’s perspective of the world around her and/ or refers to the sacred feminine, Nature as a whole. Seen under this light, Lene’s works stand as representations of a voice, the feminine voice in her works.
Her works can be seen as layered and built up to create the entire imagery which blends in figuration, portraiture, and geometric inputs which blend on the surface and at times stand along aloof from the happenings on the pictorial surfaces. One is reminded of Egyptian hieroglyphs and paintings especially where she depicts the faces are in profile, however the torsos remind one of the Magritte style of figuration, where the body is only a signifier of a thought or idea and an interactive form within the composition.
There is an attempt by the artist to portray the sense of dwarfing which happens to people in a metropolis or urban centres with high rises and the artist captures it through perspective and sharp design elements. The angular perspectives in most of her works could be attributed to actual conditioning of the mind, or symbols of conformity in a societal stance. Lene works in collages and colours to enhance the textural effects in the works. One is at once taken in by the contrasting starkness of the human form and its rich contours juxtaposed against the sharp edged un-compromising geometrical elements. This contrast sets off her works into the realm of a distinct balancing act on canvas, where the line, every line, straight or contoured, becomes a marker of precision, poise and purpose.
In the words of artist Lene Makwana
Being part of this year’s Index Fairs: International Interiors & Design Event alongside so many international and local artists is a great adventure for me.
Through Aura Arts and the Art Enclave, with their many years of experience and knowledge about the arts, I have a solid launch platform to interact with the audience, co-participants and the artists. I look forward to get to know more about contemporary Indian art, to seek collaboration beyond the fair and to see the response of my art.