Good Path, music video made for songwriter and performing artist Sofia Kanaan. 2010

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Lira Kay was born in St Petersburg. Before moving to England, as well as studying Art, she graduated as a psychologist and teacher in Estonia and also worked for a local television company as a news reporter and presenter.

She has actively participated in several art projects, including workshops, teaching Art and internationally exhibiting in contemporary art galleries and museums. Lira Kay is represented by Marseille Project Gallery and ARTFEM.TV. Her works belong to many private collections worldwide as well as to collection of Narva Museum in Estonia.

She had won prestigious Regional Prize at The Discerning Eye Exhibition at The Mall Gallery in 2005 in London, UK.

Had been working in Kensington and Chelsea College studios in 2006-2007 and studied mixed media painting and film making in Central Saint Martins college of Art and Design, London.

From 2008 lived in Marseille, France and ran a  Marseille Project Gallery  curating international art exhibitions and film screenings.

In 2011 moved to Boston, MA, United States.

Lira Kay films have been frequently screened in Europe and USA. The latest screenings as part of ARTFEM.TV include Open Video Conference, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, USA, 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art, Germany, IX Festival Internacional de la Imagen, Manizales, Colombia and Dimension Show at Artists’ Television Access in San Francisco, CA

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ARTIST STATEMENT

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Lira Kay’s work is rooted in deep reflectiveness, her educational background includes the study of Psychology, Anthropology and Visionary Art. The viewer will be struck by the boldness and freedom of her canvases. Her images show a vibrant appreciation of the power of color to communicate energy. Her work is largely intuitive, and often centers on archetypal images, acting like mandalas, providing a meditative focus for the viewer.

Currently Lira is working on series of large monochrome drawings exploring shamanic nature of art. Lira uses unique technique: charcoal with oil medium on canvas and board. She makes her work look almost like prehistoric cave paintings.  She examines the belief that satiating images with engrossed sturdy thought can indeed direct reality. Inspired by works of Jung, C. Lévi-Strauss, Kandinsky, Arp and Miro and André Masson’s experiments with automatic drawing Lira Kay engages in unconventional methods in order to test the realness of the original principles of art.

From 2008 Lira Kay mostly concentrates on filmmaking. She has been working on

series of video and sound installations, documentaries, short films, animation

and music videos. Her short films are mostly reflections on fundamental

experiences and feelings. Lira believes in universality of human kind, in connection

of all in appreciation and experience of life.

Lira creates original music for most of her films and sometimes collaborates

with other contemporary musicians. Typically as well as embracing surrounding

sounds into the peace she would combine invented languages with layers of filtered

vocals to create a magical dream-like effect.

She considers sound to be very important part of conceptual representation. In

some films she uses lack of sound, silence to intensify the experience. Her

cinematographic style can be recognized like her paintings by often being strikingly

beautiful and visually memorable.

Blue Hour in Cologne, Germany screening “Sorry” and animated film “To Be or Not to Be”

27 March 2010

Liebe Freundinnen und Freunde,

kunstpanorama macht wieder Kino!

Beate Gördes hat für uns ein überraschendes und
anregendes Abendprogramm mit Videoproduktionen
internationaler Künstlerinnen und Künstlern ausgearbeitet.

Wir freuen uns sehr auf einen spannenden Abend mit:

Daniel Balanescu, Bukarest/Rumänien
Elisabeth Eberle, Zürich/Schweiz
Cornelius Fraenkel/Neckargemünd
Ria Gerth, Köln
Beate Gördes, Köln
Alberto Guerreiro, Lissabon/Portugal
Sabina Ivascu, Bukarest/Rumänien
Dorothee Mügge, Hamburg
NOK&T/ART Amsterdam/Niederlande
Lira Kay, Marseille/Frankreich

Termin: Samstag, der 27. März 2010
Einlass 19:00 Uhr
Beginn der Vorführung: 20:00 Uhr
Eintritt 3,00 €
Ort: lindig.art, An Groß St. Martin 7, 50667 Köln

Viele Grüße
Elis Mahnke und Claudia Lindig
[www.kunstpanorama.de]

21 July Vodnjan, Pula, Croatia  Adams’ Rib

Exhibition in Cretivna Kucha gallery curated by Roberta Weissman Nagy.

Screening “Bring me a Baby”, “First Memories” and “Face off”

Exhibiting works about being a woman-artist. I chose my early films to show where my inspiration comes from.

Kreativna kuća, Vodnjan

Međunarodna izložba 12 umjetnica

Adamovo rebro

Od 21. 07. (u 20.00 sati) do 25. 07. 2010.

Projekt je započeo 2009. godine te prezentira osvrte umjetnica na svoj identitet u širem kontekstu. Istražuje odnos prema osobnom doživljaju kroz prizmu roda i mogući utjecaj istog na likovnost. Izložba dodiruje mnoga pitanja o postojanju “muške” i “ženske”umjetnosti, odnosa autorica i prostora stvaranja.

Autorica projekta je Roberta Weissman Nagy.

Kroz prijašnja izlaganja (Pula, MMC Luka; Rijeka, KUNS; Umag, Marin Galerija) mijenjali su se postavi pa tako i najnoviji predstavlja autorice: Solidea Guera (Vodnjan, London), Gabriele Boros (Chicago), Božica Rađenović (Toronto), Zlata Tomljenović, Izabela Peculić, Danica Mrakačić, Emma Santini Smith (Rijeka, Lodon), Alexandra Rotar, Kristina Buić, Mirjana Konta (Pula), Slavica Marin (Umag)

Posebna gošća izložbe je kuratorica i voditeljica Marseille Project Gallery iz Francuske, Lira Kay koja učestvuje svojim kratkim videom pod nazivom Self Portait.

Autorice predstavljaju murale, videa,skulpture, kombinirane tehnike od fotofrafija do šivanih objekata, snažnih poruka o vlastitom identitetu.

Info:

http://marseille-project-gallery.intrit.com/

http://www.akademija-art.hr/nove-izlobe-mainmenu-122/3638-adamovo-rebro-u-kreativnoj-kui.html

Creative House, Vodnjan

International exhibition of 12 artists

Adam’s Rib

Of 21 07th (At 20.00) to 25 07th 2010th

For this show we asked artists to look trough the stashes of self portraits from different eras of their lives: studies, sketches, finished paintings, photographs, autobiographical novels, poetry, artists statements they grew out of, as well as portraits of fellow artists. We were interested in all.

As a result we put together fantastic collection of incredibly personal work of people who like talking to you through art. As usual we’ll be showing painting, photography, print, sculpture, film and animation.

This year we have two curators joining our exhibition, Natalie Kulbashna in Kiev, Ukraine, and Curtis Readel in Chicago, United States.

They brought dozens of interesting artists to the project which gives new perspective and energy to the show. Both of our curators have been exhibiting with us before, Natalie came with her paintings and films to Marseille and Curtis took part inSpring Projection in 2009.

We plan to have webcam connection with them during the Preview Party on 24th April and chat about art, life, plans, anything you want really. Be there to ask the questions and take the consequences …

In Ukraine Natalie will be having exhibition of artists portraits at the same time with the same projections and film screenings we prepared here. She will turn her house into the art gallery “Domashnaja Galereja” (ул. Николая Василенко 8-А, кв. 24) just as we do and have a party with fellow artists and public to celebrate the accession. We’ll see if we manage to catch up with Chicago, given the time difference.

Here we have several local artists showing their work with us. As usual we’ll be screening short films and have projection of art work from invited artists around the world. All this time we have been receiving submissions trough our website and we have selected the most interesting works for your attention. We really enjoyed the process and want to thank all the artists for such a great response! Thank you!

Video by Lira Kay about exhibition

This video shows you preparations for the show and Opening night. Enjoy!

Read more on the MPG website

“Half-hour from paradise” 19.09.09 MPG exhibition

Marseille is a new place we are exploring, and thanks to our guests in the summer, we keep finding new and exciting sides to it. We have our favorite spots for hanging out and plans to discover more. The sea, the mountains and a busy centre are all around half an hour from us.

We proposed to explore the city, the village, the place you call yours. How do you mark it, how do you explain it, what makes it your home? So it’s all about your space.

This time as well as showing a lot of painting, drawing and photography we had a big screen cinema for the great collection of short films from Kerry Baldry, video-artist and curator from UK.

She continued a good tradition of screening her famous touring film collection in Marseille Project Gallery by bringing One Minute ( Volume 3). Last year we showed her Volume 2, which stirred both curiosity and debate about the contemporary art. We love that!

One minute Volume 3 curated by Kerry Baldry is the latest in a series of programmes of contemporary artists moving image. All with one thing in common that each work is one minute in duration. A diverse range of techniques have been employed in this compilation including video, 16mm film, super 8, animation, handmade and digital
Volume 3 artists:
Marty St.James, Louisa Minkin, Martin Pickles, Eva Rudlinger, Emily Richardson, Gordon Dawson, Nick Jordan, Richard Tuohy, Alex Pearl, Hollington & Kyprianou, Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore, Katherine Meynell, Gary Peploe, Rose Butler, Leister/Harris, Kerry Baldry, Stuart Pound, Samantha Clark, Tansy Spinks, Tony Hill, Steven Ball, Virginia Hilyard, Dave Griffiths, Mark Wigan, Daniela Butsch, Nynke Deinema, Claire Morales, Nicolas Herbert, Matthew Rowe and Tina Keane.

read more on MPG website

Also we were very happy to welcome again our artists-filmmakers Simon Laurent, Strasbourg (France) with series of new photographs, Natalie Kulbashna, Kiev (Ukraine) and Beate Gordes Cologne (Germany) with animation and films

“I choose to show this film, because it reminds me on a favorite place of mine. almost every year it is home for me for 4 weeks, – mostly in september. I spend always high creativity time there. the place is called “Schönhagen”. it is directly the coast of the German Baltic sea.(near Denmark) the birds are gathering for the long flight to the south. they have to change their residences- which is the same feeling I often have in my life….it is the life-feeling as an artist: the always recurrent preparation for coming and going, because “paradise is only 1/2 an hour…..”

“For this show I finished a project ‘My Garden’. It’s a series of paintings made out of materiels I found in the garden, mud, flowers, leafs. I recorded the process of making on the video and exhibited both paintings and film.

My garden video

It was my debut in film making so I was anxious to see the reaction of the viewers, and was really grateful for the wonderful feedback and support I received. Thank you everybody.” said Lira Kay.

Also in the film screening program we showed:

Daniel Kanaan, Marseille, “To the Park”. Film was made in London 2007 in the Batersea Park.
Short film and sound montage “Voyager” by Mik Peter Rasmussen Danish painter, photographer and video artist. A universal voyage presenting original artworks, observations and reflections during the 9:11 production.

Still from film 'When we are no longer here' Lira Kay

Futureproof exhibition 18 September 2010 Marseille Project Gallery
Vernissage 18.00-00.00 welcome!

We are exploring the possibility of the end, present state of mind and near future of the planet.
Utopian formulas, post-apocalyptic landscapes, warnings, campaigns, fears and hopes in format of the artwork, installation, painting, video, photography and text will be presented in our next exhibition here in MPG.
But not just art or artists will be on display this time.
FUTUREPROOF will show you people and the paths they have chosen. It happens that most people exhibiting will be artists but not only: there are bloggers, curators, activists, writers, musicians, mothers, men who are aware…

It’s the attitude we would like to bring across, the way of thinking. Also the feelings we have for existing world, for the possible end of it, for the future.
The question is what kind of people will be living after us. Do we care?
The show is about what is worth saving, what will survive, which ideas of humankind are FUTUREPROOF.

Still Life,Happiness

oil on canvas, 110×90 cm, 2000

To buy go to Marseille Art Shop

Linear drawings made in 1999-2002. Pastel on paper

Linear drawings made from life using diferent methods: observation, left and right-hand drawing, drawing by touch.

Available to bay in Marseille Art Shop