Michael Lawton teaches Painting, Fictional Writing and Critical Theory on Metàfora’s Studio Arts Programs.

Michael Lawton is an artist who works with both painting and writing. Born in Sheffield in 1980 he has an MA FIne Art from Chelsea College of Art & Design PhD Fine Art from the University of Kent in 2019. He has shown his paintings recently in 38b Projects (London), SWAB Art Fair (Barcelona), and Yellow (Varese). He writes fiction and art criticism and has recently had texts published in The Journal of Contemporary Painting, The Happy Hypocrite, Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture, and The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. He also tries to self-publish one book a year. He moved to Barcelona in 2017, where he undertook the Guest Researcher’s Residency at MACBA Study Centre in 2018 as well as starting the long-stay (two year) residency in Hangar Centre for Art Research and Production in the same year.

www.mlawton.co.uk

Each session will include both practical and theoretical activities, the majority of the time will be spent making work, but will also include a presentation of the weekly topic by Michael with reference to other painters and theoretical / art-historical concepts and examples from his own practice. Some of the artists and theorists mentioned will include Isabella Graw, Peter Doig, Michael Kreber, Mark Bradford, Amy Sillman and Norman Bryson.

All the students will be present for this introduction and for a “clean-up” session at the end, when all the students will show their day’s work and we can wash our brushes together. In-between students will be expected to complete the week’s exercise and the tutor will be available for the full two hours to answer questions and give advice specific to individual students.

Across the four sessions the students will work towards the completion of one ‘finished’ painting, but this will be accompanied by a number of smaller drawings and studies as students ‘fine-tune’ what it is they want to paint and how they want to do it. There will be tasks to be completed between the sessions and short individual meetings between tutor and student to workshop any problems the students might have with this homework.

Class 1
What should I paint?
Some people want to start painting, but don’t know what to paint. Some people know what they want to paint, but don’t know why. This session introduces the topic of what it means to paint today and suggests approaches for thinking about painting.

Class 2
Beginning a painting
How do we turn these ideas of what we want to do into a painting? How do we begin a painting, choose our composition effectively? This session uses studies to help students answer these questions.

Class 3
Staying focussed in the middle
This session is focusses on continuing with our paintings, how to use studies and sketches to resolve doubts we may have while working.

Class 4
Endgame / Completing the work
How do we decide when a painting is finished? And how to present your work.

Evaluation: Continuous assessment and feedback on weekly tasks, via digital hand-in of exercises to ensure student progress. Final work critiqued.

Workspace, etc:

• A comfortable workspace, preferably with ample table-space.
• An up-to-date web browser (we recommend Firefox or Chrome).
• A previously installed free account on ZOOM, preferably desktop version.
• Working webcam, microphone and headphones/speakers.
• Strong Internet connection via Wi-Fi or Ethernet.
• Students on this course will be given access to Metàfora’s educational platform ClassLife and an @metafora.org email for increased internet security access to Drive and Hangouts inside Metàfora’s Google Education domain.

Course-specific materials:

Your preferred and personal pint-materials:
Paint (oil or acrylics), brushes, canvas or other paintable surfaces, paper and crayons, pencils and other drawing tools.