Lorna Robertson

28 Jun-3 Aug 2024

Overview

A painting is a kind of space where you can stay. Somewhere you can go, similar to a piece of music... Paintings take away the weight of words. I enjoy the silence of paintings...

— Lorna Robertson interviewed by Natalie Whittle, ‘The late-bloom success of Lorna Robertson and Andrew Cranston’, Financial Times, 2024

Alison Jacques presents a solo exhibition of new work by Lorna Robertson (b.1967) who lives and works in Glasgow. Her first solo show in London includes new paintings made with a combination of oil paint, watercolour, collage and linseed oil on canvas and paper. These paintings sit somewhere between abstraction and figuration, as Robertson describes, ‘a tangled game of hide-and-seek that plays with the visibility and readability of an image’.

This new body of work reveals an intuitive approach to Robertson’s painterly language; larger, with a freedom of mark making rooted in improvisation, playing upon memory and layers of time. Cupboards and shelves in her studio are awash with clippings from vintage magazines and fashion photography, as well as scraps and samples of patterns and textiles. Robertson applies these ‘fragments of memories’ to canvas, juxtaposing them against ethereal colours and abstracted forms. ‘Collage gives me a tension... Something to play against, a sharp note against a soft note… Collage can give a graphic sharpness, a printed mark as opposed to a painted one, and I’m interested in the tension this can create’. The resulting paintings and works on paper operate on the cusp of nostalgia, memory and fantastical narratives which contain no beginning, end or certainty.

Robertson’s work reaches beyond representation through intimations of rhythm and harmony. Continually listening to music while painting, the playful, lyrical and emotive compositions are built up through layers and punctuated by repeat motifs with a unique and particular palette.

Painted outlines and silhouettes recall fashion illustration models and respond to Robertson’s interest in fashion’s ability to transform us and reflect prevailing attitudes. Her figures are always female, painted within environments which empower their protagonists: ‘I’m interested in how clothes reflect us or allow us to project an idea of ourselves’. As her clothed bodies dissolve into their collaged surroundings, Robertson captures a construction of modern femininity – unfixed, fragmentary, and flooded with feeling.

Robertson’s solo shows include ‘thoughts, meals, days’ at Ingleby, Edinburgh (2022). Recent group shows include the Royal Academy of Art, London (2023), Matthew Brown Gallery, Los Angeles (2023) and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2021).