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Lucy Orchard will be showing her next series of paintings 'lnto the Woods' this coming September 2008 at the Modern Artists Gallery. Private View date to be announced.
Education
2000-2003
Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Carlisle
MA Contemporary Arts Practice
Stylistically, Lucy Orchard's work is characterised by a frequent transition between both flat and densely worked areas, and delicate flickering outlines.
Expansive oceanic spaces or banal industrialised views are transformed into magical dusky coloured sunsets or fertile and abundant paradises. These locations are combined with a tactile and seductive arrangement of intricately woven fabrics and minimalist architecture that combine to create a spatial complexity and ambiguity in both the perspective and subjective description. These formal elements combine to suggest the conflict between the purity and the impurity of real life, and the friction between what ought to be and what is. But the works are equally a contemplative space, a place for the hopeful escape from persecution and for consolidating displacement. But it is nevertheless a paradoxical voyage as, whilst on the one hand the images are painted specifically to become objects of beauty, under closer scrutiny there is always an underlying sense of unease.
Exhibitions
2007
Modern Artists Gallery Berkshire 'Two Scottish Artists & One Other' Featuring Stuart Buchanan Lucy Orchard Frank To
Glasgow Art Fair
2006
Modern Artists Gallery Berkshire 'Lucy Orchard Paintings on Canvas'
Hic Sumus, Eleventh Hour Studios
Glasgow Art Fair (Eleventh Hour Studios)
Case File, Eleventh Hour Studios
Affordable Art Fair, London (Reubens Gallery)
Off The Wall, Eleventh Hour Studios
Fred – The Waiting Room, Carlisle
Opening Exhibition, The Gallery, Ayrshire, Scotland
2005
Lucy Orchard 'All Things Homely' (Solo Exhibition), Modern Artists Gallery,
Glasgow Art Fair, (EH)
Open Studios, Eleventh Hour Studios, Carlisle
Fred - Up, Up and Away, Eleventh Hour Studios, Carlisle
2004
Fred – The Alternative Homes Exhibition, Eleventh Hour Studios, Carlisle
Two Women Artists, Source Gallery, Carlisle
Eh? Eleventh Hour Studios, Carlisle
Modern Artists Gallery Berkshire
Transition, Mill Gallery, Carlisle
2003
Whiteout, Mill Gallery, Carlisle
Three Artists, Modern Artists Gallery, Reading
Affordable Arts Fair, London (Modern Artists Gallery)
Affordable Arts Fair, Bristol (Reubens Gallery)
Coincidences, Mill Gallery, Carlisle
What Comes In A Box? MAPS, Stockport
Collections, Source Gallery, Carlisle
2002
Five Easy Pieces, Cumbria Institute of the Arts, Carlisle
2001
Stop, I Want To Think About That, Mill Gallery, Carlisle
Open Studios, Shaddon Mill Studios, Carlisle
All Things Homely Series l/ll
The origins of All Things Homely are complex both in meaning and structural composition, even if the work is, in a tentative sense, a précis of recurrent pre-occupations. On the one hand I want the images to be objects of beauty, although under closer scrutiny there will always be a paradox, a fundamental sense of unease, of danger. In a topsy-turvey world, even the solid floor can disappear from beneath your feet.
Subtle wallpapers, decorative plates and ornaments become host to a myriad of idiosyncratic cartoon-like images, and an abundance of satire.
Light-hearted tales sit side by side with the sinister, murder weapons lie around every corner and deadly plagues are rife.
Black comedy reigns exalted.
All Things Homely is a body of work that draws upon my own personal experience of comfort and security, of family life, of love, and how this can become intermingled, quite cruelly and sometimes unexpectedly, with suffering and evil.
The works combine joy and vulnerability, in an attempt to reconcile the conflict of the purity and the impurity of real life, and the friction between what ought to be and what is.
But in their entirety, the works are equally a contemplative space, a place for the hopeful escape from persecution and for consolidating displacement, and a contemplative space in which the spirituality of the aesthetic can be experienced.
Lucy Orchard
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