With an underlying interest in exploring narratives touching on the fluidity of gender and identities; Lily Kemp’s paintings explore escapism, storytelling, the act of dressing up and playing out imagined roles.
Drawing from a range of visual references and written sources, through the process of collage she interweaves figures and images from popular culture alongside found images of landscapes and her own personal photographs. Looking in part at the relationships between popular culture, gender norms and our sense of self. More specifically at our relationship with fashion, how the way we choose to present ourselves can be considered an extension of ourselves and a way of exploring our identities outside of socially constructed binary categorisations.
The sense of scale in Lily’s paintings is often distorted and exaggerated with an interchangeable indistinct relationship between her figures and the space surrounding them, her landscapes seeming to breathe a life of their own. Scenes are often hyper idealised and fantastical; her figures living within these imagined worlds and dream like realities which are both familiar, yet also border on the performative and theatrical.
Education
2016 - 2019 BA Fine Art Painting, University of the Arts London, London
2015 - 2016 Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, University of the Arts London, London
Solo and Duo Exhibitions
2024
Inner Voyage Out (duo show with Minyoung Kim), Over the Influence, Hong Kong
2023
Taking flight, Taymour Grahne Projects, London
2022
Cry me a river, Galeria Duarte Sequeira, Seoul
Selected Group Exhibitions and Art Fairs
2024
International Women’s Day Auction, Art on a Postcard, London
2023
Duo presentation with Over the Influence at Kiaf Seoul
2022
Group presentation with Galeria Duarte Sequeira at Art Busan
Intimacy, Taymour Grahne Projects, London
What Now?, PM/AM gallery, London
Assemble, V.O Curations, London
2021
Confluence of Tongues, Grove Collective, London
Solo presentation with Galeria Duarte Sequeira at ARCO Madrid
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2020, South London Gallery, London
Get a load of this, Daniel Raphael Gallery, London
2020
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2020 Digital Platform
That’s How The Light Gets In, AucArt Virtual Gallery
The Recent Graduates Exhibition, The Battersea Spring Affordable Art Fair, London
Herstory - Women in Art, Maddox Gallery, London
The Signature Art Prize, Bankside Hotel, London
2019
The Clyde & Co Art Award, St Botolph Building, London
The Woon Foundation Painting & Sculpture Prize, Gallery North, Newcastle upon Tyne
BA Degree Show, Wimbledon College of Arts, London
Everyday Forms, Four Corners Gallery, London
For Love or Money, Copeland Gallery, London
2017
Spilt Milk, Pop up venue, London
2016
Foundation Show, Camberwell College of Arts, London
2015
Young Art, Royal College of Art, London
Awards, Competitions and Residencies
2021 She Curates x CloverMill Artist Residency, The Netherlands
2020 Bloomberg New Contemporaries
2020 Signature Art Prize (finalist)
2019 The Clyde & Co Art Award (shortlisted)
2019 Lim Ai Fang Art Prize at the Woon Foundation Painting & Sculpture Prize
2015 Young Art Competition at Royal College of Art (highly commended)
Interviews / Press
2020 Painter Lily Kemp examines the sexualisation of women’s bodies in her graphic works - It’s Nice That
2020 Interview with She Curates
2020 21st Century Women in Art - Affordable Art Fair
2019 Woon Foundation Art and Sculpture Prize 2019 Winners - Arts Thread
2019 Woon Foundation Art and Sculpture Prize 2019 winner announced - Northumbria University
Talks
2021 Caring infrastructures, survival strategies, ARCO Madrid e-talks
2020 21st Century Women in Art, talks lounge, Affordable Art Fair
Collections