The Medium of Leonora Carrington - by Catriona McAra (Paperback)

About the Book

A critical survey of Leonora Carrington's legacies in contemporary creative practice. The medium of Leonora Carrington explores why creative people, especially women, are preoccupied with making work in her legacy today.

Book Synopsis

Before her death, the artist and writer Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) had already garnered a cult following, with numerous creative people making the pilgrimage to meet her at her home in Mexico City. Since then, her fame has only increased.

Thinking across contemporary art media, this book demonstrates how Carrington has posthumously become a medium in her own right, critically haunting the creative intellectuals who met or knew her. It explores the work of a remarkable variety of individuals and organisations, including the artists Lucy Skaer, Samantha Sweeting and Lynn Lu, the actress Tilda Swinton, the novelists Chloe Aridjis and Heidi Sopinka and the ensemble Double Edge Theatre.

This long-awaited study provides essential reading for both new and established members of the burgeoning Carrington fan club.

From the Back Cover

Many creative people have spoken of their pilgrimage to meet the English-Mexican artist and writer Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) as a profound encounter. Even before her death at the age of ninety-four, Carrington had garnered a cult following.

Thinking across contemporary art media, Catriona McAra demonstrates how Carrington has posthumously become a medium in her own right, critically haunting the creative intellectuals who met or knew her. The book curates the conceptual art of Lucy Skaer alongside a Tilda Swinton performance installation and links the eco-farming of Double Edge Theatre with the animal rights interests of novelists Chloe Aridjis and Heidi Sopinka and the embodied storytelling of Samantha Sweeting and Lynn Lu.

This long-awaited study provides essential reading for both new and established members of the burgeoning Carrington fan club.

Review Quotes

'This is a new "intellectual history." A relatable, complex, and nuanced one. One with a distinctly feminine voice, that invites response as much as it demands attention.'
Tor Scott, International Journal of Surrealism

'An intersectional and intertextual journey through Leonora Carrington's practice. Issues of gender, surrealism and spirituality, modernity and the performative are the fils rouges used by McAra to read the work of one of the twentieth century's most extraordinary artists.'
Cecilia Alemani, curator

'For a long-standing fan of Leonora Carrington's art and writing, this book provides essential reading. McAra writes insightfully about Carrington's enduring appeal for contemporary artists still working today. Highly thought-provoking, this book is a brilliant resource that I will return to again and again.'
Rochelle Roberts, writer and editor

'McAra's multiple approaches invite the reader to discover the exciting adventures that paintings, sculptures and narratives offer. Many books, essays and performances take inspiration from Leonora's imagery, as McAra demonstrates. Leonora's art becomes an invitation to meet the inner personae that our culture often ignores and despises.'
Gabriel Weisz Carrington, author of The invisible painting: My memoir of Leonora Carrington

'Carrington, in McAra's perceptive analysis, becomes a powerful embodiment of a surrealist ethics of the present.'
Anna Watz, editor of Surrealist women's writing

About the Author

Catriona McAra is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Aberdeen