Episode 08

Laurie Lipton was born in New York in 1953 and began drawing at the age of four. Lipton was the first person to graduate from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honors). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, London and has recently moved back to the USA after 36 years abroad. She currently resides in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the USA.

Lipton was inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School. She tried to teach herself how to paint in the style of the 16th century Dutch Masters and failed. When traveling around Europe as a student, she began developing her very own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. "It's an insane way to draw", she says, "but the resulting detail and luminosity is worth the amount of effort. My drawings take longer to create than a painting of equal size. You can’t really experience the impact of the detail & intensity of one of my larger pieces on a computer screen. They have to be seen in the flesh.”