Kate Lyddon

dal 21/10/2009 al 29/11/2009

Gallery Davide Di Maggio is pleased to present the solo exhibition by Kate Lyddon “Happiness”

Following six successful years in Berlin, Gallery Davide Di Maggio is excited to announce the opening of a new space in Milan, at Viale Monza 10. In celebration of the occasion, the gallery is presenting the first solo exhibition in Italy of the young British artist Kate Lyddon. Born in 1979 and based in London, Lyddon's work is already part of the Saatchi Collection and for this new exhibition in Milan the artist will show an entirely unseen body of drawings and paintings.
A perversely fraught and difficult emotion, 'Happiness' is a general destination we move towards, yet directions or even an approximate location can often elude us. Left at the corner there? Up the hill a little further? Just past the terrible life decision? I suppose if one were to attempt to define Lyddon's work for this show, then it would be a document to these horrors of doubt; the complexity of the simple life decisions we are forced to make and the fear of consequence.
Lyddon's paintings are predominantly occupied by fictitious characters. Hopeful yet shabby in disposition, they could easily allude to Lyddon's own faded aspirations; dancers, trapeze artists and performers strut and swing across the canvas or paper to the tune of the artist's imagined second life. In conversation, Lyddon openly admits to some of these fears - 'I know it's probably too late to become a dancer...too late to become a number of things in fact...' - and the reality of these 'lost' ambitions are uncomfortably and joyously lived out with equal horror and celebration when dragged across her canvasses and paper.
Lyddon's work tends to openly confront this duality of emotion. The loss of something, yet the relief of its disappearance. That party one might have gone to could also be seen as 'one less opportunity to make a fool of oneself.' Fairground exhibitionists and social pariahs collide to create beautiful and contorted forms within the work. Everything appears to permanently teeter on the edge of a nervous breakdown and the mystery that keeps it all from drowning is probably the same thing that keeps us all afloat – the reason we can't help but stop and stare.
Kate Lyddon was born in Brighton and lives and works in London. She studied at the Royal University College of Fine Arts (Stockholm) and Chelsea College of Art (London) and exhibits internationally.

Opening: Thursday, 22 October 2009, 6.30 p.m.

Galleria Davide di Maggio
viale Monza 10 - 20127 Milano
Opening hours: Mon. - Sat. 10a.m – 12.30 p.m. / 3 – 7.30 p.m.
free admission