LYDIA PETTIT

Her artwork (usually self-portraits, often naked) focusses on LGBTQ+ issues, self-identity, and feminist themes such as female body shape, depression, and loneliness – often with self-effacing humour. She and her partner founded Platform Gallery (2015–17) and Platform Arts Center in Baltimore.

Early Years

Pettit graduated in 2014 with a BFA in Painting and Photography from Maryland Institute College of Art, then attended the Royal College of Art, London gaining an MA in Painting in 2020.

Artworks

Lydia Pettit’s early artworks began as portraits and figure studies of friends and colleagues. She then moved into self-portraits, at times dealing with her personal psychological trauma. These impressively crafted paintings and quilted wall reliefs present images of the artist portrayed as a strong lesbian woman standing within her local LGBTQ+ community, as in Monolith (2019), but coloured with a shaky self-regard and obvious vulnerability. Painting for the artist is a method of self-empowerment and self-understanding, confronting issues of body shaming and self-loathing.

Later developments

Beside her carefully posed, nude, self-portraits, such as Waited for Warmth (2021) and Cover (2017), Pettit’s works sometimes draw on her personal experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder, in pieces like T_he Past is in the Past_ (2020), or focus on her difficulties with mental health, as in Ajar (2021); In the Black Slime (2021); Trouble in the House (2020); Like a Vice (2021) or Ophelia of Flat B (2019). Although the later work is marked by a deep seriousness, other earlier works show great wit and self-mockery, such as Knock off the Cobwebs (2017); 2017 (2017) and Crazy (U Drive Me) (2017), which make light of self-pity.

More recent works exploit Pettit’s love of horror movies and ambiguous theatrical symbolism, revelling in melodrama. One image shows a hand about to stab with a pair of scissors, tangentially celebrating her craft sewing skills; another presents creepy body parts around a dark staircase in Don’t Look Under the Stairs (2020).

Exhibitions

Lydia Pettit has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions.

Solo exhibitions include: Introductions, White Cube, London, UK (2022); The Well, Galerie Sebastien Bertrand, Geneva, Switzerland (2021); TENDER FLEX, Artscape Artist Run Art Fair, Baltimore, USA (2018); BIG SEXY, School 33, Baltimore, USA (2018); and Murmurs: New Paintings by Lydia Pettit, Hotel Indigo, Baltimore, USA (2017).

Select group exhibitions include: IRL (In Real Life), Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2021); Tomorrow: London, White Cube, London (2020); Portraits & Some Standing Figures, Galerie Sebastien Bertrand, Geneva, Switzerland (2020); 50/50, Fold Gallery, London (2020); and Bodies: Self & Sex, No. 20 Arts, London (2019).

Awards

Jealous Prize, London, UK (2020); Young Contemporary Artist Award, Shortlist, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK (2020); Sunny Art Prize Shortlist, London, UK (2019); Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize Semi-finalist, Baltimore, MD, USA (2018); and Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant, Quebec, Canada (2016).

John Hurrell | Ocula | 2022