Lily Hargreaves

About

I paint snapshots of a history that hasn’t quite happened. I often look to the past, patchworking together historical stories to build new ones that feel contemporarily relevant. I’m typically attracted to events that are bizarre, seemingly unexplainable, and apparently unique and attempt to find ways in which to weave them into broader contextual tapestries. The fictionality of the painted world allows for speculation and indecision when reflecting on such happenings. The limitations of reality are lifted, and I am omnipotently able to mix worlds from Prehistory with those of the Industrial Age, or the Medieval with the Now. The ambiguity provided in painting gives opportunity for nuance; elements of my research material are often difficult to understand from a 21st-century perspective, so I hope my paintings might bring life to these distant pasts and invite reconsiderations without the need to find conclusion.

My paintings are highly stylised, referencing a type of painting that was practised by British artists in between the wars. While the trauma of World War One pushed many artists in other countries towards avant-garde and the future, British makers – in quite British fashion – looked to resurrect life pre-war, as though nothing had changed. A style of hard-edged realism emerged, rendered in meticulous detail as though the painters are obsessively attempting to control and systematise the world around them, uncomfortably applying this to pastoral scenes of everyday life. It feels appropriate to revisit this style now, a hundred years on, in another period of war and pandemic as well as climate crisis, applying elements to my images as though trying to find some sense in the unexplainable subject matter.

​My current body of work delves into the early 20th-century wellness industry, looking at the treatment centres and fad diets that became fashionable amongst the upper classes in this era. I’m exploring how this period possibly relates to a Christian tradition of fasting, tracing it through medieval saints and Victorian teenagers up to trends we see in 21st century food discussions.

​Hargreaves was born in Reading, 2000, and is now based in London. In 2019, she completed a Foundation Diploma in Fine Art from Central St. Martins before moving to Goldsmiths for undergraduate study in the same subject. She is currently studying for her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art. In 2022, Hargreaves was awarded the Tooth Travelling Scholarship as well as the BAGT Open Founder’s Prize, and has previously been shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize (2020), the Hari Art Prize (2023), Studio West’s ‘Now Introducing’ Prize (2023), and the Valerie Beston Award (2024).

Selected Group Exhibitions
2021
John Moores Painting Prize, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
‘Port of Call’, Changing Room Gallery, London

2022
‘The Last Night on Earth’, Goldsmiths Degree Show, London
‘Second Expression’, The Split Gallery, London
BAGT Open, BAGT Studios, London
‘Winter Winter’, Moosey, Norwich
‘Stiltsville’, Half Gallery, Miami

2023
‘Tart Factory’, Tart Gallery, London
‘Wisteria Only Grows in a Crowd’, Goldsmiths Degree Show, London
‘Now Introducing’, Studio West, London

2024
‘Are We There Yet?’, Peckham Arches, London
‘Myths and Dreams’, Chilli Art Projects, London
‘A Painting Show’, Staffordshire Street x Paint Talk, London
RCA Postgraduate Showcase, Royal College of Art, London

​Solo Exhibitions
2023
‘The Bogman’, Shipton Gallery, London