Artist: Lydia Gifford
Exhibition title: To. For. With
Venue: Laura Bartlett Gallery, London, UK
Date: March 26 – May 10, 2015
Photography: Images courtesy of the artist and Laura Bartlett Gallery, London
Laura Bartlett Gallery is delighted to present To. For. With , a solo exhibition by British artist Lydia Gifford.
The exhibition comprises of a new body of work exploring the artist’s ongoing concern with the language of painting and the balance between painting and object. Gifford’s work offers an experience of interrelated objects, consumed surfaces and textural and physical nuances. Privately performative, she works intuitively, using the limits of the material as guidance; the work grows from an inquiry into the physicality of painting and, from the activity of application, layering and portioning, forms amass and take on sculptural volumes.
To. For. With is a story of movement, of relationships and transitions. A choreographed series of encounters and gestures contribute to a dialogue among, around and between objects that engage with each other in a palpable rhythm, one work makes room for another. With physical and tactile presences, the objects take on temporary bodily spaces.
The echoes of a specific, unplanned, sequence of actions, a miscellany of movements, are rippled in the stretched, twisted, pulled and pinned materials and gestures of Gifford’s works. Decisions are layered atop of another, a durational record of time spent with the object. For Gifford, the works intend to capture the traces of her activity, exploring movement as a vehicle to generate meaning. Like nets, surfaces provide a site to hold or track the transience of the passing moment; the tension, rhythm, resistance, fluidity, encounters that result from the artists inquiry into the potential of material.
Lydia Gifford lives and works in London. Selected solo exhibitions include Drawn, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2014; Siding, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, 2013; The Neighbour, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London; Midday, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; Distances, Galerie Micky Schubert, Berlin, all 2012. Selected group exhibitions include Can’t Hear My Eyes, curated by Niekolaas Lekkerkerk, Nogueras Blanchard, Madrid; White, Simon Dickinson, New York, Prairies, 3rd Edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes: Biennial for Contemporary Art, Rennes; Minimal Myth, Museum Boijmans, Rotterdam and Jonathan Binet, Lydia Gifford and David Ostrowski, BolteLang, Zurich, Switzerland. Upcoming shows in 2015 include Border Crossing, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and ADVENTURES IN BRONZE CLAY & STONE, curated by Adam Carr, Arezzo City Arts Festival.
