Charles: So, tell me a little bit about yourself and where you're from.

Lydia: I'm from Manchester, UK, but moved to London 11 years ago to study Fine Art at Goldsmiths. After graduating I worked in the art industry as a Painting Assistant while continuing to pursue my art practice. In 2021 I began my MFA in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art and I graduated in 2023 with a distinction. My Slade degree show presentation won the Almacantar Studio Award and I remember the elation I felt when I received that news, the award meant so much to me. I spent last year in the studio in East London, which was super valuable for enabling me to continue developing my work after Slade. In August when the tenancy was up it felt like the perfect time to relocate my studio to Manchester and I now work between there and the South of France.

Since graduating from my MFA I have had my first two solo shows: one in London with Unit London and the second in Seoul with LKIF Gallery. For my show with Unit London (which was an online solo presentation as part of their emerging artists program, Voices) I presented monotypes and oil paintings of endurance athletes. The largest work was over 2.2 m in length, the largest and most ambitious painting I have made to date! I really enjoyed the challenge of dealing with the complexities of painting at this scale.

For my first international solo with LKIF gallery in March I presented drawings, paintings and monotypes. This exhibition showcased my wider interest in womanhood, focusing on the idea of the female gaze and the representation of women, themes which are also crucial within the paintings of women in sport. It’s been a really busy and exciting time!

Charles: Fantastic! How do you think your work has evolved from your time at Goldsmiths through your time at Slade?

Lydia: In short, quite a lot, its been a journey for sure! During my time at Goldsmiths, 20213-2016, painting was not popular within the institution. Most students were working with sculpture, video or installation and I had to justify my reasons for working with paint. My practice has changed dramatically over time but I think many of the fundamental concerns within my work have endured: my work is figurative and deals with how women are represented. When I was at Goldsmith's, I was thinking about the representation of women within fashion magazines and the context of the fashion industry. I was dealing with clothing – often elaborate, flamboyant items which alter the structure of the body. I was interested in consumer culture, in particular dressing, accessories, food and how we use these objects to communicate individuality and personal narrative.

Now, my focus has shifted, but it still feels aligned to the themes I was exploring ten years ago. I'm still really interested in how women choose to present themselves, using clothing and accessories to communicate their identity. My work transports us to a multitude of settings both private and public: from getting dressed in the studio to performing at the highest level in a sporting arena. Especially within my paintings of women engaging with sports, (usually running, swimming, diving or playing football) I am aware of my position as a contemporary female artist working within the context of the male gaze within western painted art history. My aim is to celebrate the lived experience of women: my paintings portray women as highly skilled, powerful and in complete control of their bodies. I believe these works are celebratory and important, using painting, personal experience and research to make work that readdress woman's representation within art history.

Charles: And being a British contemporary painter, you have the likes of the Francis Bacons and David Hockneys, historically and presently since Hockney's still going.

Lydia: Absolutely, there are so many exceptional British painters, and it's truly wonderful to have access to such incredible works from artists around the world through the UK’s museums and galleries, we are so lucky that the majority of permanent collections remain free to the public within these institutions. Figurative painting has experienced a real resurgence of focus, which is really thrilling and so exciting to be a part of! During my time at the Slade, I met so many like-minded young painters who are working in various modes of figuration, and it was wonderful to create in the studio alongside each other. There are many exceptional painters working today who inspire me to keep pushing my practice and to ask challenging questions of my own work. I’m invigorated by the resurgence of painting and figuration and how I can position my work within this.

Charles: When I first saw your work, I thought firstly about modern existentialism and the human condition things often explored in 20th century art movements. What are you reading? What's informing you to intertwine those 20th century philosophical thoughts into contemporary moment?

Lydia: A huge inspiration to me is the contemporary moment, my own lived experience and the experience of others. I read a lot, biographies, adventure writing and fiction. I am interested in people who push past of the prescribed “norms” of contemporary life and do something extraordinary. Like climbing Everest unsupported (without any oxygen) which Alison Hargreaves did in 1995. The first woman to ever achieve this goal, her story is beautifully told in, A Line Above the Sky, by Helen Mort. I am interested in the tenacity needed to intertwine the hunger for achieving sporting goals such as this, which often take so much time and focus, alongside the daily domesticity of life and work. Women who engage with these epic endurance challenges, to me, are rejecting societal norms and conventions, and I find this really fascinating.

More generally, I am interested in embodiment, the body as a subject matter in art practice and the 1970’s feminist performance artists. This has formed the basis for a Practice-Based PhD proposal I have been writing, where I plan to research the representation of athletic women through art history and reinterpret women's athletic experiences through an expanded painting practice.

So, to answer your question, I am inspired by a range of movements, periods in history and people’s stories. From art history, Artemisia Gentileschi’s biblical painting and self portraits offer endless fascination– she's a huge inspiration for me. I have started writing sporadically for the academic journal, The Conversation, and my most recent piece focused on Artemisia and the power of her work during her lifetime and now.

Charles: I'm curious to hear a little bit more about Artemisia. How does Artemisia's portrayal of strong, resilient women and her use of dramatic realism influence your approach to painting, particularly in your depictions of females in these powerful positions – such as women in sports.

Lydia: I think her work is deeply powerful and emotive. Her use of light, contrast, color and the physicality of her painted bodies inspires my paintings of people being strong, physical and in control. I also really enjoy thinking about her context within Italy as a women painter during her life time. Despite being within a society that disadvantaged female artists she was so successful! She had patrons queuing out her studio door to buy her work and travelled Europe completing commissions. Her work can be very violent, but personally I like to focus on the idea of these women, sometimes herself, being really in control and at the forefront of the imagery.

Two of my favourite works by her are Self Portrait as St Catherine of Alexandria (1615-1617) and Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura), 1639. These works feel psychologically intense while holding a tenderness and silence within them which sits in contrast to other works in her oeuvre.

Charles: Sports in general is often about strength and perseverance. And that I think is genderless in the sense that you still must have strength and perseverance to be a female tennis player, for example. You're going against another player. It's one-on-one but also other team sports like basketball, baseball and rugby, especially rugby. What sports intrigue you?

Lydia: Outside of art, I love taking part in sport, and over the years it has given me a real sense of belonging, community and confidence. Over the last few years, I have used my experiences of sport as the springboard to make my work. I find dealing with women in sport through painting exciting and I don't feel like there's been a huge corpus of paintings made of women in sport in the present day. I have been thinking about the duality of being an artist and a sportsperson; both require a vast amount of tenacity, repetition and perseverance.

For my degree show, I focused on this metaphor between sport and art making.

Half the works in my degree show were about the act of painting, preparing for the act of painting and the skill and practice needed for art making. The other works explored these same themes through the sporting lens, I found drawing these two parallels fascinating. Towards the end of my residency in the Almacantar studio, I made paintings of divers, using this motif to think about the idea of skill, obsession and perfectionism. Of course, all these traits affect both female and male artists or sportspeople, but I suppose I'm focusing more on the representation of women as that’s where my research interest lies.

Charles: I think your paintings display remarkable attention to detail and texture, which also brings out the physicality and emotional depth of your subjects. How do you approach the technique especially considering the artist's hand – your hand, for example?

Lydia: Yes, that's such a lovely question. I do a lot of drawing which is crucial for developing a confidence in mark making, which I move across into painting. I also think it is super important to study art history. I go to museums regularly and I spend time with paintings I am interested in, trying to figure out the artists’ process and locate their touch within the work. I am interested in how other artists layer color, deal with composition and create depth, movement, atmosphere through glazing. For as long as I can remember, I have been committed to gaining skill as a painter, working out ways to trick the eye—creating movement, depth, energy. Within my work, I am aiming to get as much detail, movement and character across with as fewer marks as possible, which I am still developing through painting and drawing. I think as a painter, developing your painterly language is a lifelong journey.

Charles: And speaking of emotional responses, your color palette probably invokes a visceral experience from the viewer. How do you situate your color palette within the broader context of art history and what specific theories or historical influences guide your choices in color?

Lydia: My use of color feels saturated, and I think this saturation feels situated in the contemporary moment. Looking at colour within historical painting, artists often used contrast to create intensity.

Within my work, the zesty greens and throbbing pinks feel exhilarating and fast paced—like our contemporary society. I want my palette to feel punchy, optically vibrate and for the colours to buzz or bounce off each other. I use glazing to add tone, depth and intensity to the work, I want the colours to be sumptuous and rich. Bridget Riley’s use of colour is a huge inspiration to me. I have spent a lot of time engaging with her work, specifically, how the placement of colours creates energy and optical vibrations that affect the registration of color. Using colour, I can ramp up the energy and movement of the figure through sensitive manipulations of the tonal relationships I work with. While at the Slade I won a scholarship which was a Color Theory course, which taught me the science of optics and how I could use this within paint.

Charles: And speaking of being stuck, I think creating art is often about problem solving. Discuss with me another instance where you became stuck in solving a problem and how you overcame that.

Lydia: I think as a creative – maybe you can relate to this—you are continuously on a rollercoaster of being really inspired when making the work, and then sometimes feeling like: where does this go next? You've solved a bit of a problem and answered some of your questions—and then there’s a moment of suspense when you have decide how to move forward. I’m always trying to fuel that cycle, which for me is through drawing, printmaking, reading, looking at art and talking to fellow artists. And of course, I've never made a painting which has answered all my questions, so everything I make always opens a new problem or a new avenue of investigation. I always let the work – drawing and my passion for painting – be the fuel that keeps me going. There have been times in my life when I've not been able to paint because I've had to focus on something else, which has raised questions of “Do I need to paint? … maybe I can do something else and feel fulfilled?” But painting always calls me back.

Charles: And from the small mono types to your large-scale works, what’s the thing about scale, large or small that intrigues you?

Lydia: I find contrasts and opposites stimulating when making art. I really enjoy the challenge of making the big paintings because they feel monumental: the figures are life-size and the canvases are often similar to my height, its important that the viewer can imagine stepping directly into the pictorial space within these paintings. I'm really inspired by Alex Katz for his use of scale, I love his work so much for the use of color, simplicity of mark, and scale.

That said, it’s the small works that I want to focus on more in the coming months. I want to push myself to work small scale and see what this opens up for my practice. I was looking at some miniatures in a museum the other day and I am interested in the idea of working small scale as a curatorial device: a tiny painting on an expansive white wall is so powerful, like a punctuation mark. It can feel so strong. A small statement, in relation to other works which are monumental or domineering within the space feels like a thrilling combination to me. I think this could create a real sense of power and dialogue between works, and am excited to start exploring this.

Charles: And walk me through your process from conceptual idea in your head to finished work of art.

Lydia: My process follows a similar routine for all of my work, its both mental and very physical. Usually, my ideas form when I am doing things that engage my body physically, like running, when my brain can relax and free flow. If I am in the studio and I am stuck, I often go for a run, and it really helps me to churn over some thoughts in my head and realize a solution without digging myself into a hole or over thinking. In the past, I have struggled with self doubt in my work, I’ve had an idea and talked myself out of it before I’ve even begun bringing it to life! It has taken me until recently to overcome this, ignoring those thoughts and experimenting freely and intuitively. I think art practice is very serious but should also be approached with a sense of lightness when in the throws of making. Its after the making has taken place that a criticality should come in, not during - that stifles the energy and freedom of the work.

I rely heavily on the process of making drawings to anchor my practice. Every day I make a huge number of drawings in the studio and this routine grounds my studio routine which I often treat like an office job: I get in at 9 and I leave at five, with a half an hour lunch somewhere in the middle with my studio mates. I have a list of what I’ve got to do that day and the rest of the time is spent playing with materials, drawing, figuring things out, nudging ideas forward. I will draw for an hour or so, and each drawing will only take a couple of minutes. I’m not at all precious with my drawings and I never erase anything. I use them as an anchor point to work from the next time, whether that be for a drawing or a painting. Each drawing I generate will feed the next and then eventually I'll get to something to paint from or take to printmaking.

If I'm planning a large painting, I have a really big roll of paper, I think it's 10m in length by 1.5m in width, I'll roll this out on the floor and make a loose drawing to scale. I use graphite powder which when mixed with water, creates this beautiful, velvety silver paste which moves around on the paper seamlessly. This is a physical process because the drawing will be possibly several meters and I work on the floor: I’ll be crawling around on the floor, drawing, erasing, drawing – as you can imagine, it’s a very fluid process. Afterwards, I will start on the canvas.

Charles: How does the act of creating art help you navigate and interpret the complexities of human existence?

Lydia: I suppose I can only talk about that from my own perspective. For me, art making can be incredibly challenging but also deeply rewarding. It’s my way of life. I can’t imagine feeling true satisfaction in my life if I wasn’t, in some way, making work. Like I alluded to before, there have been time I haven't had a studio, and my output and creativity will shift from a big oil painting to small sketchbook drawings, writing or monotypes. What is important to me is to keep working.

Charles: And as a painter, how do you grapple with the tension between form and content? And what do you believe is the ultimate purpose or role of painting and contemporary society?

Lydia: I think painting operates as a window into our psyche. In the contemporary world, when so much of our life is online and so immediate and fast paced, painting, to me, almost feels like a rejection of this sense of immediacy in some ways. Painting operates as an opposite way of thinking and approaching the world through this much slower, embodied physicality. I think there will always be a place for painting and physical making processes. In terms of grappling with form and content, for me that’s through a deep commitment to drawing, using drawing and mark making as a way to process ideas and experiences. I have always been incredibly dedicated to painting and my artistic practice and I am a strong believer in the practice of making art. It’s through showing up in the studio and committing to developing a practice, working through material and always asking questions, that the magic begins to happen in the work.

Charles: Looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the evolution of your artistic practice?

Lydia: I am committed to devoting my working life to painting, learning about painting, teaching painting and developing my skills and sensitivity to paint as a material for conveying my ideas and experiences. I want to continue to learn from art history and the contemporary art world, and develop networks of peers to extend my artistic community across the world. I love meeting new people who are in the art world, and I would like to travel more with my work, taking part in residencies and exhibitions internationally. I really enjoy teaching in tandem to my studio life because each fuels the other in some way. I think community is important to foster creativity. Pursuing my creative ideas, developing my skills and ideas, with always having a big focus on the studio, is how I hope to spend the rest of my creative life.

Charles: And historically there have been some amazing artists that have juxtaposed their artistic practice and teaching budding artists. How do you balance the two types of thinking?

Lydia: The lovely thing about teaching is that you are thinking through the subject via a different lens, which operates separately from the way I think through practice in the studio. Now, when I am making, reading and researching, I often find myself thinking: how could this feed into the my teaching? What possibilities could my research offer the students…? I really love that shift in thinking through art, it allows me to consider art from dual viewpoints, which keeps my thinking and making fresh. When I return to the studio after a day at university, I am energised by the students’ enthusiasm and curiosity for their work which motivates me to continue to soak up new experiences within my own practice, and always keep an open mind to shifting possibilities. Like I said before, I learn a lot from my academic role and the wider community where I work and these experiences feed back into my practice. For me, painting combined with teaching creates a rich, productive cycle of ideas and action. So many artists whom I greatly admire have a teaching practice. I think it is super useful for my development as an artist to teach alongside painting and I hope to have a rich and dynamic career which continues to span both practices.

Charles: And in your next one or two solo shows, what things are you interested in exploring?

Lydia: I am delighted to be working on an exhibition with you focusing more acutely on female elite marathon runners. It will be wonderful to bring a body of work to a new audience which explores the physical and emotional sensations of endurance sport through figurative painting.

Alongside this, I am continuing to develop work which explores the representation and experiences of women in daily life through a range of motifs. Harking back to the beginning of my career, fashion imagery continues to be influential, along with drawings and photos from my own personal archives. Through both strands of my practice I am challenging myself to work on a range of scales and I am developing a broader range of mark making in response to the subject matter I am working with. I am considering more how I can convey feeling subtly through the application of paint. At the moment I am enjoying a period of high productivity in the studio, hibernating from the winter: painting, drawing and planning for the next year.