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Omkonst - Published 06 March 2006 - Translation In English
Article by Susanna Slöör for solo exhibition at Galleri Anders Lundmark, 2006
Searching For The Ticket To Life
Text: Susanna Slöör
Translation: Jon Lundmark
"Put your face on love, we're going out."
Kate Lyddon plays scenes with beat somewhat desperate female figures
who reluctantly accept going home alone night after
night. The last hour they spend clinging to each other at the
"Rejects' ball". The disappointing endings of the singles' nights
don't however make them all too dispirited, the witty comments hiss
out between their expressively over-painted lips.
You sense a kind of army or sailors' spirit; a common experience
developed under the pressure of repeated failure. In spite of the
golden crowns and corsettes, these are no harmless princesses with dreams
all in pink who you encounter in the collages of Kate Lyddon. Comments
like "Ur dream husband" seem to work like a mantra, repeated for the
repetition itself rather than the desired result. They might in fact
prefer each others company, in the scenes Kate Lyddon has made for
them, to the company of the men who you don't often see in the
pictures.
It's probably no coincidence that the figures bare some resemblance to
the drawings of Jockum Nordström and that the scenes have borrowed their
hallucinatory air from works of Francis Bacon. Kate Lyddon makes use
of her "idols" with an obviously appreciative wink and transforms the
expressions for her own purposes.
This 26-year-old brit grew up in Brighton but has spent time as an
exchange student at the Royal University College of Fine Arts in
Stockholm.
Her expression connects to recent years' figurative wave of drawing
with a slightly naive touch. She also mixes the absurd and seemingly
gawky drawing with objects like wallpaper and pieces of canvas with
doll's hair and stickers. Don't be fooled by the naive touch, it takes
an experienced drawer to make it. It's probably really about making an
impression contradictory enough to be both seducing and repelling in
all it's "simplicity".
In the case of Kate Lyddon and her pop/rock lyrics spiced world of
pictures, the corrosive voice of PJ Harvey rings in my ears.
06-03-2006
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