Lulu Stephenson

About

Lulu Stephenson is an artist based in London, graduating from the Royal College of Art MA Painting programme (2023-2024). She is a recipient of the ColArt Winsor and Newton Bursary (2023).

“My work explores memory and perception. Forests and figures fluidly coalesce into dynamic forms, within which emotional and physical landscapes collide. I imagine my paintings existing in “the space between things”, both abstract and figurative, both painting and drawing, both intimate and isolating. Subjectivity is ever-present; at its heart, a memory is only ever a memory of a memory of a memory. An echo, a palimpsestic mark, a dreamlike state of the subconscious. By fragmenting spatial and physical hierarchies, I seek to explore painting as an act of co-creation between the artist and viewer.

I think of memory as a raw material. It sits in my studio as an almost-object, next to my paints, my palette. It has a weightiness to it, a physicality. Memory has the power to cast shadow and light, which I connect to through layers and layers of luminous paint. Paint exists in something of a parallel space, constructing reality while also confusing it. 

When I work, I begin by thinking through colour to capture a mood and sense of place, allowing specificities to fall away in favour of softness and sharpness, gesture and mark. Palette is crucial to this, offering an intuitive expression of mood and psychological atmosphere. The canvas gives an immediacy to the ephemeral. Memory, when translated through paint, becomes an earthy medium by which to reflect on past and present, and trace enduring patterns, unspoken as they may be.”