Jacqueline Utley
b. 1964, United Kingdom
There is a sense of contingency of capturing a very private moment shared between female subjects in the paintings of Jacqueline Utley. After her return from art school to do an MA two decades after starting her BA, Utley made a number of small paintings of flowers in vases set against modest, plain backgrounds, as well as dreamlike paintings populated with quietly self-contained women.
In those latter paintings the figures stand or talk with each other, relax on furniture, turn towards contemplation, do domestic and creative work. These paintings seem to be about interiority, both in a physical and psychological sense. But flowers and petals drift in. They are a sudden, rather joyous reminder of the world outside, a reminder that interiority and the world around us can meet at the most surprising moments.
Utley lives and works in London. She has a BA (Hons) in Painting from Chelsea School of Art (1989) and an MA in Drawing from Camberwell College of Arts (2008). She draws on a number of sources including documents about women workers in the 20th century, art historical sources, magazines and journals. Along with her own practice, Utley engages in collaborative practice-based research projects on work by overlooked women artists.