Lydia Blakeley

Vocation
Monday 22 March 2021 - Friday 16 July 2021

Lydia Blakeley was born in 1980 in Bracknell, Berkshire, she currently lives and works in North Yorkshire. Received her MFA Fine Art at Goldsmiths (2017-2019) and completed her BA (Hons) Fine Art from Leeds College of Art (2013-2016). Blakeley uses paint to reflect the present, which is saturated with snapshots of hyper-reality, and by using the medium as a response to popular culture. Aided through technologies, accumulating and redistributing signs by negotiating multiple temporalities, reflecting the globalised world.Through the painting process she attempts to introduce new layers of meaning, develop narratives and present alternative interpretations of out actuality.

Portraiture throughout art history seems almost entirely reserved for a privileged few, famous institutions have archives of old masters, depicting oil paintings of aristocracy in Britain throughout history. In the age of new media young people have been taking ownership of their own self-portraits, carefully curating an image of themselves and how they want to be perceived, sharing those images online via social media. For the exhibition Vocation at Blank_ Gallery, Lydia Blakeley presents a new series of paintings which features students who attend Leeds City College. Blakeley’s exploration into portraiture brings together individual’s who enrich the educational environment. Using the traditional medium of figurative painting to observe and capture the portraits of individuals undertaking lifelong learning at the Quarry Hill Campus. From Art and Design to Social Sciences, Blakeley’s painting reveal the subject’s personalities and individuality, celebrating the vibrant students who are at the very heart of the college community.

Supported by Leeds City College Arts Fund