Featured Artist of The Week: Lydia Blakely!
"Lydia Blakeley joined us at the Fores Project in August 2021. Addressing the world she encounters through her phone and laptop, Blakeley preserves the present by screenshotting and recording source imagery found online. During her time with us, Blakeley produced The Pet Project (2021), a series of oil paintings focusing on depicting ‘viral’ pets found by the artist on TikTok. During her visit to London, the artist also attended multiple mud larking expeditions on the northern bank of the Thames. The action of collecting different items washed up on the bank seems reminiscent of the videos arriving on the artist's screen through the TikTok algorithm. Screenshots and artefacts treated with the same care, the nature of Blakeley’s processes slow down what would have been a fleeting viewing of the material to give it permanence. Painting in series, she often thinks about a particular image for a long while before transferring it to canvas. A new process using velvet as a painting surface slows this process further, not looking down on the subject matter, but rather capturing the character of the source material with reverence."
Selected artwork:
Artworks in order:
#ferrettok, 2021, Oil on velvet, 25 x 20 cm
#monke, 2021 , Oil on velvet, 25 x 20 cm
#chickhammock, 2021, Oil on velvet, 25 x 20 cm