Wish you were here, a solo show by British artist Lucy Smallbone, opened on the 15th September at Fiumano Clase.
Smallbone has created a series of works that provided an escape from the tumultuous and seemingly never-ending months of the ongoing global pandemic. In March 2020 she returned to her family home in the English countryside, a place filled with childhood memories and traces from her past.
During this time away from the buzz of her London studio Smallbone found herself thinking of the places she wished she could be and where she had been in the past. The images that recurred in her minds-eye were full of dappled light, swaying water and scent filled forests. Intriguing scenes, somewhere between fantasy and dystopia emerge from the canvas. Smallbone muses on what makes images and memories stick:
"I've tried to put this into my paintings by wondering how much I can evoke these thoughts in others. The influence of cinema and photography on these types of images also adds to this, as we are used to accessing them through a lens, mostly a rose tinted one."
Lucy Smallbone, May 2021
