Lucy Skaer

Lucy Skaer’s multimedia practice is equal parts material and conceptual, drawing from a background of history, art and its foibles. The veritable craftsmanship of individual artworks points to the inheritance of artistic techniques and contrasts handmade objects with processes of reproduction. Altering the content of her source material, Skaer reanimates the significance of images in the collective consciousness. The use, ritual, and history of the materials she uses are both implied and concealed, but there is a recurrent concern for their relationship to the landscape.

The use, ritual and history of the materials she uses are both implied and concealed, but there is a recurrent concern for their relationship to the landscape. Contrasting the structure of our daily lives with the expansive uncertainty of geologic time, Skaer’s work reminds us that value and meaning are abstract and ever-changing, and in this there is a utopian potential for re-definition.

Lucy Skaer (b. 1975 in Cambridge, UK) lives and works in Scotland (UK). She graduated from the Glasgow School of Art with Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art in 1997. In 2009, Skaer was a Turner Prize finalist, and in 2007 she represented Scotland at the 52nd Venice Biennale. She was a resident at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (US) in 2016 and at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver (CA) in 2015. This year, Skaer will present a solo exhibition of new works at Peter Freeman Inc., New York, NY (US), opening in the fall.

Her recent solo exhibitions include: Ingots and Adaptations, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Day Division, GRIMM, London (UK); Rural Works, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Forest on Fire, Bloomberg SPACE, London (UK); Future Sun, S.M.A.K., Ghent (BE); Day Divider, Meessen De Clerq, Brussels (BE); Heavy Weather, with works by Carol Rhodes & Hanneline Visnes, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); The Green Man, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh (UK); Sentiment, Peter Freeman Inc., New York, NY (US); Available Fonts, Kunsthalle, Salzburg (AT); La Chasse, Kunstverein, Salzburg (AT); Available Fonts, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (DE); Una Casa Más Pequeña (The Smaller House), Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (MX); La Chasse, Musée, Régional d’Art Contemporain, Serignan (FR); Past Shows, GRIMM, Amsterdam (NL); Leonora, Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury (UK); One Remove, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (NL); Sticks & Stones, Murray Guy, New York, NY (US); and Random House, Peter Freeman, New York, NY (US).

Lucy Skaer’s work is included in the collections of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (FR); Centre national desarts plastiques, Paris (FR); THE EKARD COLLECTION; FRAC, Marseille (FR); Glasgow Women’s Library, Glasgow (UK); Government Art Collection, British Consulate General, New York (US); Musée Régional d’Art Contemporain Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée, Sérignan (FR); Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (US); S.M.A.K., Ghent (BE); Tate, London (UK); The Arts Council Collection, London (UK); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (US); UBS Art Collection, Zürich (CH) and many private collections.