Lily Macrae

Another Gallery LA is pleased to present Laid Bare, the debut U.S. solo exhibition by Lily Macrae.

Laid Bare refers to the things that we see and do not see. The outcome of the painterly dance moving between form and abstraction. The paint is applied, layered, and the slowly removed and wiped away to reveal the light beneath each gesture. It is the absence, not the presence of paint that constructs the scenes left behind.

Drawing on a wide set of influences from Old Masters drawings to film stills and found imagery, this body of work brings together the classic and contemporary through a cast of unknown characters. Juxtaposing disparate images which feel puzzlingly linked, and removing them from the context which was initially intended. It is concerned with the potential that the material holds for transformation, and its ability to reveal something new.

Heavily influenced by tenebrism from the Italian ‘tenebroso’, each work is searching for how the light falls, forms and emanates from within. Familiar motifs are cropped, altered, and illuminated out of the darkness. Some source images are obsessed over and returned to, others aren’t visible or used at all.

Born and based in Scotland, Lily Macrae (b. 1994) lives and works in Glasgow from her studio in a warehouse on the banks of the Clyde River.