A Wider Berth

Acrylic and mixed media on canvas

Emma Lilly

London, UK

I make non-representational paintings that are process-driven and physically substantial, the surfaces crusty, gnarly and active. A Wider Berth belongs to an ongoing series called Crawl Space Jam, in which I have been reassessing ideas of space and surface – physical and metaphysical space, spaces illusory and real, of confinement and refuge, and the space of the canvas as simultaneously surface and window, where I slip constantly between the surface and the spaces and structures within. Through what feels to me to be a sort of reverse excavation process, I build up the material surface, which, recycled, compressed transformed, unstable, retains I hope the trace and energy of my intense engagement. The work is both purposeful and serendipitous. I like that layers of destruction and creation, of overpainting and sanding back and rebuilding can result in a provisional coherence that holds in balance moments of fragile beauty, graphic humour and intransigent lumpiness.

SELLING PRICE

£2,800

LENGTH

180 x 150 cm

WIDTH

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