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.