Lavinia Gallie

Lavinia Gallie makes abstract work that draws on pattern and geometry to animate the canvas building colours through form and line. Lavinia uses a variety of media in her practice and in all, whether painting on canvas or paper, or in this case cloth, her colours and compositions are carefully considered as she seeks to capture a sense of poetic meaning to the work. Lavinia says “I rarely plan a painting in advance - it is in the act of painting that I develop a pictorial idea, which may start with something as simple as a square of colour; it is only by making and doing (and un-doing) that I can find my way to something approaching a satisfactory result.”

A visit to the Anni Albers retrospective at the Tate, inspired Lavinia to experiment with cloth, using scraps of collected materials like paint, cutting, layering, stitching, adding and taking away, to create these beautifully bold abstract works. Colour is so important to Lavinia and as Anni Albers herself said 'colour, as the most relative medium in art, has innumerable faces or appearances. To study them in their respective interactions, in their interdependence, will enrich our 'seeing,' our world-and ourselves." Seeing female artists such as Albers' pursuit of anonymous form and Krasner's act of tearing and cutting for collage as a form of self expression has had such an impact on contemporary art emboldening Lavinia to experiment once or twice year into textile work. Lavinia makes only two or three cloth works a year and so we're delighted to preview this limited collection at The British Art Fair.