Introducing Chloe Louise Lawrence

135 artists featured in "Inside Job" which took place on the 7th and 8th of April on Level 6 of Tate Modern and was visited by over 3,000 people. The Rebel Magazine has been chatting to some of the Tate staff who showed their artwork. Today it's the turn of Chloe Louise Lawrence

Q) Where did you grow up and what kind of education did you receive? "I was born and grew up in Woolwich, which is right on the River Thames in South East London. I grew up drawing and always making things, and despite not having university or ‘creative’ backgrounds, I was definitely encouraged and influenced by both my parents. My Mum always had a hand at sewing, fabric construction and repairing… and she’d also take pride in the interior of our home, crafting surfaces and different wall hangings- making our modular council flat an individual home. I remember one time she covered our white boxed kitchen cupboards with this bright ultramarine textured vinyl- it kind of made the kitchen look like a space ship! My late Dad also, he was a lorry driver and I have many memories as a child of going to work with him when I wasn’t at school, and just being surrounded by tools and construction. He also had a knack for drawing, which perhaps inspired me to do so as well. I attended my local all girls secondary school, where I completed a BTEC National Diploma in Art & Design instead of the GCSE; and I went on to do A Levels in Art and English Literature in Sixth Form college. However, it wasn’t until my Sixth Form college tutor suggested that I did an art foundation [after frantically scrambling over UCAS and wondering how the heck I was going to get into university with only two A Levels and what else I was going to do with my life] that I made the decision or realisation that I could go to art school. He pointed me in the direction of Camberwell College of Arts, which was where I discovered that I could embed myself in this world of art and really make it a thing. I stayed at Camberwell to complete my Bachelors in Painting, graduating in 2014. After all this, I am now still in arts education and still in South London, studying at the Royal College of Arts for my Masters in Print."

Q) How long have you been working at the Tate and what's the best show you've seen there? I started working within the Tate shops for the Alexander Calder show in 2015, and now just over two and a half years later, I’m a permanent member of staff working every weekend in that crazy structure that is the River Shop as you walk in on the front of the Tate Modern building. The best show I’ve seen? I think my most memorable has to be the Rachel Whiteread Turbine Hall installation EMBANKMENT back in 2005. I was 14 and even though I grew up in South East London, it was the first time I’d ever gone to Tate Modern before. I remember walking into the building and just being confronted with these towering glowing boxes, filling up the vast space of the Turbine Hall, and really taking it over. I was in absolute awe. I went with my Mum, Step Dad and sister, and we just ran around the polyethylene structures of cardboard boxes, hiding, getting lost and exploring. It was an exciting day for me. My Mum was already aware of my growing interest in art, and kept asking me what I thought it meant.

Q) What can you tell me about the work that you exhibited in the Tate Modern show? "My practice has involved using the methods and processes of printmaking as a way of recording time within everyday spaces, of domestic labour and of the workplace. The work I exhibited ‘Portrait of a Floor (Ann's Linoleum Parcay)’, is a framed relief print onto paper, depicting a section of linoleum imitation parquet flooring taken from my Grandmas old kitchen, which I ripped out for her. It captures marks embedded and created through use and time, such as the hole where the door stop used to screw in and a spot where the floor has had something melted into its surface. Personified as a portrait, the work draws attention to and gives significance to the subtle marks that are traces of repeated moments. The work also plays on class and a hierarchy of materials. Linoleum, used as an affordable and accessible material for home interiors, is also alternatively used as a fine art printmaking process adopted by the likes of Erich Heckel, Picasso and even Matisse. Having the opportunity to show this piece within the Tate Modern, adds an extra layer, or actually dissolves it perhaps… bringing this everyday used floor from a home in South London imprinted with age and labour, into an institution- and to share space with the likes of Picasso and even Matisse."

Q) How can people find out more about your work - do you have a website or do Instagram? I do have a website www.chloelouiselawrence.co.uk I also have instagram and twitter, which I regularly post about things I am making in the studio and future shows —> @chloelouisse.

Q) What's the best thing about working for the Tate? "The colleagues, the team, the mates! Everyone who I work with. I think there’s such a solid ground-workforce here at Tate, of people who are all doing so many interesting things no matter what they’re field is, and I guess we’re all trying to navigate that. There’s so much support in this place and that’s why it’s been great to finally have this show pulled together."

"Inside Job": An exhibition of art by Tate Staff will took place on Level 6 of the Blavatnik Building of Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG