“My paintings resemble domestic cloth. Intimate textures collected with stains, seepages and marks that give the feeling of a force departed. Finding anchors in the fluids and debris of paint. Marks fading, retreating, sinking back, buried, contrasting with the definite physicality of surface gestures. Accidental marks and spillages are responded to and built on. A composition emerges, held together as a fragile relationship."
–Lydia Gifford
Lydia Gifford’s paintings, sculptures and installations navigate the place between painting and object, stretching the language and possibilities of their materials. Interiors and exteriors are continually revealed then concealed bringing the practice that happens in the privacy of the studio—its urges and nuances, its temporal conditions—to their very surfaces. The liveness of the body and its emotion is made present in textures and shapes, bringing the tussle of making into view and inviting us to observe and relate.
Working into wet cloth harnessing the resistance of oil paint to adhere, accentuating the sculptural nuances of paint and support. Responding to gestures that blister from buried layers, creases, overlaps, and folds, all drawing from landscape and geology. Capturing time, an atmosphere hangs that is personal, emotional and there is an ongoing sense that the process is a discovery and a reconnection to the transient passing of an emotional journey. Lydia Gifford (b.1979 Cheltenham U.K) lives and works between Ardnamurchan and London. She received her MFA from The Royal College of Art, London in 2008 and has exhibited widely staging solo exhibitions Poreuse, Gilles Drouault, Paris, France; I Am Vertical at the Centre International d’Art et du Paysage, Ile de Vassiviere, France. BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. Galeria Alegria, Barcelona. L21 Gallery, Mallorca. Micky Schubert, Berlin. Laura Bartlett Gallery, London. Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel. ‘Art Statements’, Art Basel, Switzerland. David Roberts Art Foundation, London.
