Our presentation of Lydia Blakeley at The Armory Show takes her solo institutional show at Southwark Park Galleries, London (2022) as its starting point. That show consisted of a series of paintings and painted sculptural sun loungers that at first view seem to portray an idealised vacation filled with palm trees, swimming pools and piercing clear sunshine. Other works depict the views out of airplane windows, or other moments from an imagined perfect holiday.
On closer look though, it is not clear how much Blakeley is being affirmative about these escapist scenes. The paintings have an element of something not being quite perfect. As the critic Eddy Frankel wrote: “They’re in an uncanny valley of chill, where relaxation is haunted by some unknown threat.” Or as the writer Kate Lloyd put it, “Think: Soleros and Thomas Cook meet the underlying tension of The White Lotus.”
For her presentation at The Armory Show, Blakeley has made new works to accompany some of the highlights from her institutional show, which was mentioned by both British Vogue and Time Out London as one of the key shows to take place in the UK in 2022. Along with the paintings, the presentation includes one of the sun-loungers from that show as well as two newly-commissioned beach chairs.
