Leo Fitzmaurice, Flyer floorwork (concentric)

30 July – 10 September 2005
Leo Fitzmaurice
Neat Stuff

Neat Stuff was the first major UK solo show of work by Liverpool-based artist Leo Fitzmaurice.

Working from a studio in a high-rise block of flats, Fitzmaurice has beeninterested in the bombardment of information modern life presents us with.

He explores this deluge through large-scale installations and small-scale sculptures, working with discarded packaging, flyers and magazines. This use of materials questions what is important, how we interpret the world around us and our place within it.

He cuts away text and other information to re-present familiar materials as sculpture, images, installations and publications. By removing the text from packaging in this way, the artist enables viewers to concentrate on the forms of the graphic design without being blinded by information. The process is, however, more than just an exercise in graphic appreciation. The removal of this text information is crucial to Leo’s ethos.

“We are the first generation that may suffer from receiving too much information,” he said.

The removal of the information of everyday discarded objects goes beyond everyday packaging and a razor blade. An entire Littlewoods catalogue where every page has been folded into a package and then each of these stacked in the corner of a room is another of his works. Crisp packets arranged by their colour in rainbow sequence. All the work attempts to take from everyday objects an improved element of aesthetic; large carpets made of supermarket flyers, billboards robbed of text. Leo works in a third floor flat of a council high-rise block in Liverpool, which is due for demolition. He works without music, or sound of any kind.

“I hate information,” he said.

Leo Fitzmaurice was born in Shropshire in 1963. He studied at Leicester Polytechnic 1988-89, Liverpool Polytechnic 1989-92 and Manchester Metropolitan University 1992-94. Recent exhibitions include:

Mappin Sheffield Art Gallery, 2002 (one-man)
Further Up in the Air Linosa Close Liverpool and tour 2002-3
Art Trans-Pennine www.artranspennie.org.uk 2003
From a Distance Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool 2003
On Side Centro de Artes, Coimbra 2004
Inter Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston 2004

Neat stuff is presented at firstsite in collaboration with Blueprint magazine.