Leo Fitzmaurice

Fitzmaurice was born in Shropshire, England, in 1963. He studied painting at Leicester Polytechnic, Liverpool Polytechnic and Manchester Metropolitan University.^[1]

After leaving college Fitzmaurice moved away from pure painting and his practice eventually focussed on a strategy of intervening in already existing objects, materials and situations, a way of working which continues to this day.^[1] Some of his earlier work was shown at EASTinternational^[2] in 1995 where one of his pieces was purchased for the Arts Council Collection.^[3] Also after graduating Fitzmaurice developed an interest in working in non-gallery situations by co-organising a number of 'artist-led' projects such as All in the Mind (1998), with artist Patricia McKinnon Day, which took place inside a disused mental asylum;^[4] and Up In The Air/Further Up In The Air (1999–2004) with artist Neville Gabie, which used tower blocks as contexts for art and writing.^[5][6] In these projects Fitzmaurice worked with the artists and writers George Shaw, Julian Stallabrass, Elizabeth Wright, Lothar Gotz, Will Self, Anna Fox, Marcus Coates and Bill Drummond amongst others.^[7][8][9]

During this time Fitzmaurice continued to develop his own practice, exhibiting widely in shows such as Good Riddance at MOT, London, in 2007;^[10][11] the international sculpture show Blickachsen 6 in Germany the same year;^[12][13] Undone at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds in 2010^[14] (which was reviewed in Art Monthly by David Briers);^[15] The Way We Do Art Now, curated by Pavel Buchler, at Tanya Leighton Gallery, London, also in 2010;^[16][17] Chain Chain Chain, 2012, at Bischoff Weiss, London, curated by Glenn Adamson;^[18] and Cosmos Levels, the same year, curated by Jamie Bracken Lobb at The Sunday Painter gallery, London.^[19][20] During this period Fitzmaurice developed the long-term project Post Match which was launched in 2009 with a publication by art agency Locus+.^[21] It was later shown at Gallery So in London and reviewed in Creative Times.^[22][23]

Solo projects occurring at this time include Sometimes the Things You Touch Come True at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2009;^[24][25] You Try To Tell Me But I Never Listen at the New Art Gallery Walsall, 2011;^[26] and Blank Stir^[27] at Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (with Paul Rooney), 2012.^[28] In 2008 Fitzmaurice was commissioned by Harewood House in Leeds to make the sculptural work What Use is a Sign if We Know The Way,^[29] and later that same year Leeds art agency Kaavous-Bhoyroo commissioned the found-concrete multiple work Recouper.^[30]

Fitzmaurice was shortlisted for the Northern Art Prize in 2011, presented at Leeds Art Gallery, eventually winning the prize for his presentation of a slide-show of photographs and an arrangement of 13 landscape paintings from the gallery's collection.^[31]

• Official website
• Contemporary Art Society member page
• Article by David Crowley for Eye Magazine
• Interview by Trade Gallery