Life Sketches superimposed on existing imagery

In 2015 life model Kaz Garrad and artist Loïs Cordelia co-founded a popular, community-inspired, untutored, not-for-proft life drawing group in their hometown of Ipswich, to benefit artists, models and venues. The class ran regularly until the pandemic. During this five year period, Loïs experimented freely, superimposing sketches of figures and portraits directly over existing imagery, text and maps in books, calendars, music manuscript and onto LP sleeves.

The results were paradoxical, surreal and unexpected, spontaneously evoking weightlessness, pathos, transcendence, mortality, serenity, and humour, questioning the viewer's sense of scale, time and space. In some cases, multiple life sketches overlap and appear to interact. Backdrops include imagery of the sea, shipwrecks, interplanetary space, ancient monuments, temples, antique maps, and so on.
Tragically, the group's co-founder life model Kaz Garrad passed away in 2024. Kaz features in hundreds of Loïs's sketches. Loïs continues to superimpose life sketches and other work on unconventional canvases and existing imagery in her ongoing exploration of surreal art.