Lauren-Marie Haywood is a multidisciplinary portrait artist based in East London. Her work interrogates the intersection between blackness and womanhood, encouraging black women of all the African and Caribbean diasporas to see the beauty in their melanin and heritage. Working with a huge variety of mediums (both digital and traditional) she creates bittersweet yet empowering works, that serve to examine the history behind prejudices that affect her community most. Chocolate, sugar, fibreglass, and marble dust, are just a handful of the materials she has mastered. From the wisdom of enslaved women who plaited rice into their hair for survival, to the courage of those at the Igbo Landing who chose death over bondage all those years ago, Haywood paints black women back into their rightful place in British history.
Haywood graduated with honours from the university of Westminster in 2020, having achieved a First Class Degree in Fine Art Mixed Media. Her degree show piece won first prize in the Roy’s Art Fair Degree Show Competition, and her work was featured in both AN Magazine and Artplugged as a result. Her work has since been showcased at The Brick Lane Gallery, The Smith and Partner Gallery, No. 20 Arts, and more. She has been featured on numerous notable news sites, such as Black History Month UK and Buzzfeed UK, and was even interviewed on national television
Projects
- The Blacker The BerriesThese tiny blackberry candies are another of my creations for the Complexion Complex line. Based on the phrase, “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice,” they seek to celebrate dark skinned individuals by presenting them as something delicious and desirable. I first sculpted them in polymer clay and then cast around 100 of them in resin. This piece – entitled ‘The Blacker The Berries’ – consists of dozens of tiny berry shaped sweets, each of which has a ‘stereotypically black’ human face
- Edible ExcavationIt is estimated that the global African diaspora is formed of over 140 million people in the present day. Through a history of migration, enslavement, and indentured servitude, many thousands of communities have been displaced from their countries of origin, and forced to adjust to new ways of life on completely different shores. Perhaps the most interesting observation to be made of the diaspora is that, within each and every community, many elements of our original social, political, and spiri
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Work history
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Fine ArtistSelf Employed
London, United KingdomPart Time
For the past three years I have worked as a freelance painter, muralist and sculptor. This position includes:
Establishing a detailed and comprehensive proposal to present to clients based upon the clients’ briefs.
Refining said proposal following extensive reviews with clients, so as to ensure the final product is the best possible execution of the client's vision
Marketing and selling my original work
Establishing a loyal client base, and maintaining relationships with my clients on a daily basis via social media and email
Temporary Assistant LecturerUniversity of Westminster
- Harrow, United KingdomPart Time
I assisted senior lecturer Peggy Atherton in directing workshops designed to expand the minds and practice of foundation students. The “hands-on” approach involved pushing students to work with new materials, at a variety of scales and on different locations to encourage a new and innovative practice.
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Skills
- Illustration
- Sculpture
- 3D Sculpting
- Clay Sculpting
- Sculpture Installation
- Sculpting
- Abobe Illustrator
- Book Illustration
- Book Illustrations
- Child Illustrator
- Children Illustration
- Character Illustration
- Childrens Illustration
- Commissioning Illustration
- Comic Illustration
- Digital Illustration
- Fine Art
- Final Cut Pro
- Photoshop
- Affinity Suite
- Affinitydesigner
- Installation Art
- Art Installation
- Interactive Installations
- Creative Installation
- Installation Artwork
- Video Editing
- Adobe Create Suite
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft Powerpoint
- Microsoft Word
Education
BA(Hons) Mixed Media Fine Art First Class with HonoursUniversity of Westminster
London, United Kingdom
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IB CertificatesInternational School Nido de Aguilas
Santiago, Chile
Visual Art (HL)
English Language and Literature (HL)
Spanish Ab Inicio (SL)
History (SL)
Awards
Roys Art Fair degree show award 2020Roy's Art Fair
On their Instagram in early July, Roy’s Art Fair announced the winners of their Degree Competition. Set up in May to help support the art degree graduates of 2020 who had had their final year shows virtualised or cancelled, the prize offered much-needed promotion to young artists.
Here at Art Plugged we were lucky enough to talk to Emma Murphy, the marketing manager at Roy’s Art Fair, as well as the top three prize winners: Lauren Haywood, Molly Kent, and Martyna Taraszkiewicz.