Leo Fitzmaurice – You’re Beautiful, I Think, 1999-2008

Born in 1963 in Shropshire. Lives and works in Merseyside.

After leaving college Fitzmaurice moved away from pure painting and his practice eventually focussed on a strategy of intervening in already existing objects, materials and situations, a way of working which continues to this day. Some of his earlier work was shown at EASTinternational in 1995 where one of his pieces was purchased for the Arts Council Collection. Also after graduating Fitzmaurice developed an interest in working in non-gallery situations by co-organising a number of ‘artist-led’ projects.

Fitzmaurice’s practice is grounded in a process of roaming and observation, appropriating existing languages, focusing on the overlooked and the ubiquitous. His work looks at the world we have designed for, and around, ourselves often focusing on the essential characteristic of symmetry, both in the objects we design, and our relations to them. By using found and discarded objects, Fitzmaurice situates his work around issues of consumerism and the consequences of mass production on our lives. Previous bodies of works have utilised found Coke cans, plastic shopping bags, discarded cigarette packets and advertising flyers, all items with an inherent disposability and devastating permanence when it comes to the environment. Clearly the future of the automobile is currently at the centre of this debate, and from a climate perspective due for a radical overhaul, thus lending the Auto’s the status of monuments to future histories.

Other works: