Happy New Year! To start the year off right, here is the first Friday & Friends of 2012. Introducing Lucy Gough, a good friend of mine that lives in London, UK.
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Roselina Hung: How did we first meet?
Lucy Gough: We first met in a cramped, smelly basement office whilst working for Central Saint Martins during the summer of 2006. Since you left London, we have caught up in person a handful of times and have kept in regular contact with a succession of emails, usually ending ‘write when you have time’. I can keep up with your artistic practice by following your blog and Twitter. It is a truly modern phenomenon to correspond in this way, but it works really well for us. I’m very much looking forward to a real life hook up in spring 2012!
RH: Tell me a bit about yourself…
LG: I was born and raised in Newmarket, which is a horse racing town in Suffolk, England. It was a very outdoorsy childhood, mainly spent running around in the garden with my two little sisters. I studied art between 1999-2002 at Norwich School of Art and Design. I took Creative and Cultural Studies, which was a combined visual arts and creative writing course. When I began the course, I intended to follow the creative writing path, but at the end of the first year I elected to focus on visual arts and have never looked back. This had a huge impact on the work I make now as text features predominantly in many of my artworks. I have been exhibiting regularly since graduating, almost a decade ago. Shortly after graduating, I moved to London and have lived here ever since. I have made some of my best friends here, and it has been hugely beneficial for my artistic practice. London has a way of sucking you, I think Samuel Johnson was right!
RH: Tell me about your work…
LG: Due to my unorthodox art education, I have dabbled with a few different mediums, but always seem to route back to screen printing and photography. The bold, flat colours of screen printing suits the graphic nature of my work whilst photography enables me to produce work with a completely different ambience. I have also undertaken several commissions for University College Hospital London where I have been responding to a brief and working in a very different way. I thrive from having a variety of styles, mediums and projects concurrently running alongside each other.
RH: What are you currently working on?
LG: I am currently preparing for a very exciting project. I regularly show with Jealous Gallery and Print Studio, who are taking on a week long live screen printing residency in the window of Heals on Tottenham Court Road. I have long been an admirer of Heals and the beautiful, classic designs that they have produced over the years. The residency runs from January 30th – February 5th and at some point during this week, I will be taking my turn to print in the window. I have created a new piece of work especially for the residency. I am interested in the way patchwork was used to send messages during the abolition of the slave trade. I have adapted the flying geese patchwork design for my newest work and have used a 1950’s inspired colour palette as a nod to the inspirational designs which have been produced by Heals.
RH: Where can people find your work?
LG: Jealous Gallery & Print Studio, Heals, my website www.lucygough.com, and my blog.
RH: Tell me one fun fact about yourself.
LG: I have a birthmark in the shape of the United Kingdom (excluding Ireland) on my right knee. Not a lot of people know that.
Thank you, Lucy! Please visit www.lucygough.com to view more of Lucy’s work.