The Spring Auction 2020

A self portrait of the award-winning artist, Lydia Pettit, peeling back the wallpaper of her childhood home.

Acting as a literal and metaphorical dig into her past, the wallpaper pattern is as significant to Lydia as the house, becoming part of her motif.

Born and raised in Maryland, USA, Lydia now lives in London. Lydia's paintings explore the experience of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the politics of the body, using her own image to convey the duality of strength and vulnerability.

The body is a host to trauma, and becomes a battleground in itself in the push and pull between recovery and regression, love and disgust, tenderness and callousness. The past is a ghost, infiltrating the present - visual fragmentation of the figure within the paint and textile pieces communicates the disorientation of mental illness, while the self portraiture
oscillates between revealing and hiding, in order to mimic the reality of recovery.

Accolades

BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, 2014.
MA, Royal College of Art, London, 2018.

Awards: Shortlisted, Biscuit Factory Young Contemporary Artist Award, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 2020. Shortlisted, Signature Art Prize, London, 2019. Shortlisted, Sunny Art Prize, London, 2019. Shortlisted, Neo:Artprize, Bolton, 2019. Finalist, Royal Society of British Artists Rome Fellowship, London, 2019. Finalist, Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, Baltimore, Maryland, 2018.

Solo Exhibitions: Tender Flex, Artscape Art Fair, Baltimore, Maryland, 2018. Big Sexy, School 33, Baltimore, Maryland, 2018. Murmurs: New Painting by Lydia Pettit, Hotel Indigo, Baltimore, Maryland, 2017.

Selected Group Exhibitions: Signature Art Prize Gala, Bankside Hotel, London, 2020. Bodies, Self and Sex, No. 20 Arts, London, 2019. A Raw Garden, Pinch Projects, Fitzrovia Gallery, London, 2019. RBA Rising Starts Exhibition, Royal Overseas League, London, 2019. Painters on the Other Side, Dyson Gallery, London, 2019. Deep Stretch, Field Projects, New York, NY, 2018.