Lavinia HARRINGTON
( 1986)
Alone with you (I)
Soft pastel and DAS air dry clay on handmade 400 GSM Khadi White Banyan Rag Paper.
Signed Lavinia and titled Alone with you in pencil on the verso.
1642 x 1118 mm. (64 5/8 x 44 in.)
Signed Lavinia and titled Alone with you in pencil on the verso.
1642 x 1118 mm. (64 5/8 x 44 in.)
This monumental pastel work was completed in 2024 and is the first of three works of that year that share the same title, which is inspired by a line in Rainer Maria Rilke’s early poetry collection The Book of Hours, written between 1899 and 1903 and published in 1905.
In a recent statement, Harrington has written that she is ‘moved by how soft, vulnerable materials can hold and emanate deeply charged emotions. Through making, [I am] searching for ways to materialise sensation. The works that grow from this are not representations but embodiments. Questions of care and empathy, reciprocity and sustainability are at the heart of [my] practice…[My] works emerge from an accumulation of action and erasure, contemplation and somatic movement, and are guided by visceral reactions to colour…Above all, [my] practice is sustained by a desire to engage with and share our astonishing capacity to empathise and connect with the living world.’
In a recent statement, Harrington has written that she is ‘moved by how soft, vulnerable materials can hold and emanate deeply charged emotions. Through making, [I am] searching for ways to materialise sensation. The works that grow from this are not representations but embodiments. Questions of care and empathy, reciprocity and sustainability are at the heart of [my] practice…[My] works emerge from an accumulation of action and erasure, contemplation and somatic movement, and are guided by visceral reactions to colour…Above all, [my] practice is sustained by a desire to engage with and share our astonishing capacity to empathise and connect with the living world.’
An Italian-British artist, Lavinia Harrington received her MFA in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art in London with a Distinction in 2024. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in the History of Art in 2008, and two years later gained her MA degree at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She has fifteen years of experience working in arts education; delivering public talks for the National Gallery in London and teaching in museums, galleries and schools across the United Kingdom and Italy. In 2022 she took part in the group show I Felt That - a collaborative, care-centered project addressing the gender pain gap - at The Tub, an artist-run project space in Hackney, London. More recently, Harrington’s work was included in the group shows Somewhere In Between at the Hew Hood Gallery in Islington, London, and in Beauty in Individualism: A Selection of Works by Women Artists of the 20th and 21st Centuries at Stephen Ongpin Fine Art in London. In 2024 she was shortlisted for the Chadwell Award and the same year was awarded the Audrey Wykeham Prize for Painting.
Harrington’s grounding in the history of art, as a student, scholar and teacher, has had a profound impact on her work. As the artist has said, ‘having specialized in the Italian Renaissance, I’ve spent most of my academic and professional career looking predominantly at artworks by white western male artists. Over time, I’ve filled boxes and boxes with postcards, magazine cuttings and all sorts of images I collected whilst teaching abroad…I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to engage with artworks first hand on such a regular basis – it’s certainly helped me to also build up an imaginary library of images to draw upon, whether consciously or unconsciously whilst I work…But, it’s been my focus on women artists that has felt most empowering in terms of developing my own practice. I was drawn to pastels as a medium after handling one [of] Joan Mitchell’s breathtaking drawings in the gallery I worked for back in 2014. My recent pilgrimage to see her sensational exhibition in Baltimore was nothing short of lifechanging…I find the immediacy and intimacy of works on paper and embroidery really appealing, particularly works by Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Saville, Rachel Jones and Joana Choumali.’
Harrington works primarily on paper, using in particular handmade papers to which she applies pastels, raw pigments and water-based materials, responding to the tactual sensation, fragility and intensity of the medium. Much of her visceral process involves the folding and layering of paper, often applying the pastel or pigment directly onto the sheet laid flat on the floor, while collage and assemblage are also an important part of her method. She works directly with her hands, embedding pastel into paper, which she folds, unfurls, soaks and rubs until the tactile sensibilities of surface and structure resonate with the experiences she is exploring. As the artist has stated, ‘My pieces emerge over many unseen, unresolved layers and erasures, and are folded and unfolded in the process...I believe in, and am sensitive to, the inherent agency of colour and material…Working with paper has become integral to my practice for the intimacy and immediacy it elicits.’
Harrington’s grounding in the history of art, as a student, scholar and teacher, has had a profound impact on her work. As the artist has said, ‘having specialized in the Italian Renaissance, I’ve spent most of my academic and professional career looking predominantly at artworks by white western male artists. Over time, I’ve filled boxes and boxes with postcards, magazine cuttings and all sorts of images I collected whilst teaching abroad…I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to engage with artworks first hand on such a regular basis – it’s certainly helped me to also build up an imaginary library of images to draw upon, whether consciously or unconsciously whilst I work…But, it’s been my focus on women artists that has felt most empowering in terms of developing my own practice. I was drawn to pastels as a medium after handling one [of] Joan Mitchell’s breathtaking drawings in the gallery I worked for back in 2014. My recent pilgrimage to see her sensational exhibition in Baltimore was nothing short of lifechanging…I find the immediacy and intimacy of works on paper and embroidery really appealing, particularly works by Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Saville, Rachel Jones and Joana Choumali.’
Harrington works primarily on paper, using in particular handmade papers to which she applies pastels, raw pigments and water-based materials, responding to the tactual sensation, fragility and intensity of the medium. Much of her visceral process involves the folding and layering of paper, often applying the pastel or pigment directly onto the sheet laid flat on the floor, while collage and assemblage are also an important part of her method. She works directly with her hands, embedding pastel into paper, which she folds, unfurls, soaks and rubs until the tactile sensibilities of surface and structure resonate with the experiences she is exploring. As the artist has stated, ‘My pieces emerge over many unseen, unresolved layers and erasures, and are folded and unfolded in the process...I believe in, and am sensitive to, the inherent agency of colour and material…Working with paper has become integral to my practice for the intimacy and immediacy it elicits.’
