Small Pleasures

"This is the smallest work I have ever made. I wanted to make a work which could almost be carried around in the pocket of your jeans or kept in a match box. Something that could quietly always be with you, tucked into your clothes.

I painted the work using very small brushes and more than 40 colours because I wanted the painting to feel like a little jewel, a miniature tapestry. The work is inspired by mental health problems; when everything feels too loud, intense and overbearing. The metal hoops in the ear feel harsh and intrusive pierced through the soft fatty earlobe, it is my gentle yet deeply personal homage to depression.

My paintings explore ideas of the female erotic, sensitivity, and the human body, often using organic forms acting as motifs for our physical fragility and limitations, creating a visceral window into my experience as a young woman. I am deeply invested in painting in all its forms, and approach all art making from a painterly perspective. The physical act of being in the moment of making a painting, for me, is something which I feel a deep connection to and this emotion leaks into the work itself. I am interested in the idea of painting possibly being framed as an extension of the body, the marks left on a canvas the relic of the performative and deeply personal act.

Often my work has a quiet, meditative atmosphere. My work is heavily influenced by mental health, sensuality and tactility. I am interested in the poetics of feeling and my recent works seem to buzz with a sense of disconnection while also being deeply linked to the physical body through the act of making." - Lydia Merrett, 2021

Accolades

Education: Slade School of Art, MFA Painting 2021 - 2023 (upcoming), Goldsmiths, BA Fine Art 2013 - 2016

@lydiamerrettpainting
www.LydiaMerrett.com