Lily Hargreaves paints scenes from an alternate timeline, acting as its historian as she documents the happenings of Willowfield village and its residents. Her canvases invite viewers out of their world and into one that parodies, probes, and pulls at the seams of the former's contemporary institutions. By constructing a world of intense detail, Hargreaves exploits the omnipotence of the artist, mapping her characters’ reactions as they negotiate warps in seemingly fixed ideas like time and reality to discover new, unburdened modes of existence. Although contemporary in its concerns, her imagery is often historically inclined, playing with ideas of linearity and cyclicism as threads of past, present, and future entangle. This allows for an expanded and experimental approach to storytelling, with characters and places appearing and reappearing through different tangents of what could be a never-ending series.
The project exists as a sort of Ergodic literature, individual compositions overlapping to produce dense tableaux wherein every element is imbued with symbolic importance. Hargreaves’ theatrical approach to the installation of her paintings prompts a viewer to play an active part, investigating the images for clues from which to build their own narrative and, in turn, meaning. Overall, she celebrates the transcendent freedom of the imagination not only as a momentary escape away from a 21st century in flux, but also as a place to manifest new realities.
Lily Hargreaves was born in Reading, 2000, and is now based in London. She has achieved a Foundation Diploma and BA with Hons in Fine Art from Central St. Martins and Goldsmiths, respectively, and is now pursuing an MA in Painting from the RCA in London.