Lily Macrae
b.1994 Edinburgh, Scotland
Lives and works Glasgow, Scotland
Education
2012-16 | BA Fine Art | Edinburgh College of Art
Solo Exhibitions
2023
(Upcoming) Solo, Soho Revue, London, UK
Reverie, &Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2022
laid bare, Long Story Short, Los Angeles, CA
2021
All That Remains x Purslane, 14 Cavendish Square, London, UK
2020
Lily Macrae, Art Pistol Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2019
Phantoms: Between here and there, 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan
Group Exhibitions
2023
What Now? PM/AM, London, UK
Sweet Spot, BLANK Gallery, Shanghai
30:30, &Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
2022
Ojos de Perro Azul (curated by Natalie Weder and Nuria Galland),Marinaro Gallery, New York, NY
ART FOR UKRAINE @theauctioncollective
ARTISTS FOR UKRAINE Charity auction @procrastinarting_
What She Said, Curated by Purslane for International Women’s Day
On Paper, &Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
Art on a postcard x India Rose James, Ukraine Charity Auction Abstract, Annan Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2021
Thesmophoria, Soho Revue, London, UK
DAYDREAMING, Tom Faulkner Chelsea, London, UK
Latitudes: A response to Covid 19, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland
2019
Zeitgeist, 108 Fine Art, Harrogate, UK
She Said, Cass Art, Glasgow, Scotland
Air 3331 Residency Exhibition, Kanda Nishikichō Studio, Tokyo, Japan
Awards & Residencies
2020
Pandemic: A response to Covid 19 Award and Exhibition, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scotland
2019
Residency with Air 3331 Arts Chiyoda, Sotokanda Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo, Japan
2018
The British Sasakawa Foundation emerging artist grant, promoting mutual cooperation between the UK and Japan
2018
The Hope Scott Trust, Murray. Beith. Murray, grant for emerging Scottish Artists
Creating work which draws so much influence from old masters such as Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Eugène Delacroix, suspends my work somewhere in between the past and present.
Re-imagining these stories to highlight their power, beauty, and often absurdity, I am exploring the role they play within a contemporary narrative and the ability they have to deliver a timeless portrayal of humanity.
I reinterpret these iconic scenes to learn from the human architecture, playing with the traditional intentions of the imagery. I want to honour each works ancestry whilst questioning our ineluctable relationship with the past.
Drawn to the fleeting nature of the painterly gesture, I am using the process of painting itself as being an act of both excavation and construction. Each painting is an attempt to capture an image within the spontaneous gesture, to encapsulate this feeling of touch and fleeting movement. I want to produce works that feel timeless, as if caught in the movement of a moment.
I paint in an almost negative way, applying the paint only to remove most of it, searching through each layer for earlier shape and form, whilst attempting to reveal what lies beneath the surface. Each painting is an excavation process, as I attempt to visualise something that has been forgotten.
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