Lorna carmen mcneil

I am dedicated to a deep and intuitive exploration of life, by uniting newer light, digital and interactive technologies with fine art (painting and sculpture).  I founded www.movinglightart.com in January 2014 in collaboration with technical designer Geoff Blindt to enable an optimal fusion of fine art with technology.  

With a professional background in healthcare and mental health, and an interest in human health and well-being, I lead on artistic and creative innovation.   The result is a versatile art medium that transforms architectural surfaces into stunning live performances with dynamic light effects that respond to people’ movements. 

By combining low energy lighting, optical sculptures, painting, kinetics, digital photography projection, interactive digital programming and sound, the resulting installation compels attention, creating an infinitely changing, interactive, uplifting, inspiring immersive light and colour experience.  I also create smaller pieces and experiential photos of the sculptural light art.  I collaborate with different professionals to develop different aspects of the work. 

I am intrigued by the properties of light, colour, energy and texture within the natural world. Consider the flow of water and the movements of the sun and the moon as they transform the sky from day to night, and how this reflects the inner journey of being human. The very sense that nothing seems stable all too often results in doubt and uncertainty.  My pieces speak of what it is to be human and express a deeper nature of reality by connecting with life's rhythmic waves and colours to explore the certain continuum of life and its eternal evolving cycles.  The installations are an invitation to the viewer to experience a world of connectedness, luminous flow, and calm, comforted by the eternal constancy that transcends all things.

Both within my own art practice and my workshop facilitation, I seek to enable connectedness and illumination through aligning with the invisible, interconnected rhythmic communication that permeates all things.    I work with immersive, interactive and multi-disciplinary collaborative experiences to enable direct experience of this.  By flowing from one medium or approach to the next, relationship, unexpected creative flow and dialogue may be enabled.   Movement, emergence, and discovery may be facilitated, potentially enabling expression and connection where it had previously been disabled.  

In addition to ongoing development of new bodies of work, both large and small, I am a tutor at The Art Academy, London, offer innovative interactive workshop experiences for businesses, charities, and groups, and private tutoring. My works are collected in the UK, Europe and USA and reside in both public and private collections. They are currently on display at the Art Academy, Hospice of St Francis Berkhamsted, and Trinity United Reformed Church, St Albans.   They were recently showcased at Wac Arts, e-Luminate, the Barbican and Womad.

RESIDENCIES

I recently successfully obtained a substantial Arts Council Grant to fund a residency at Wac Arts, London, during which I had two shows (one solo and one in collaboration with the young people) and facilitated eight workshops for disabled young people.  During this time I developed an innovative approach to workshop delivery involving an interactive dialoguing process between different art disciplines including sound, music, dance and movement and a range of different art materials and processes (http://www.lornacarmenmcneill.com/#!wac-arts-jan---march-2015/c4hv)