Artist: Lucy Otter

Pippy Houldsworth Gallery presents Studio Jumps, British artist Lucy Otter’s first exhibition with the gallery.

In the mid-1970s Otter gained recognition for bringing abstract painting into conversation with conceptual art practice. Known for her use of heavy impasto in gestural abstractions that explore materiality in and of itself, the artist has crafted a visual language deliberately free from any apparent narrative device.

Studio Jumps assembles a group of works made between late 1978 and 1979 by Otter, when iconoclastic musician Paul Hickey, a childhood friend, invited her to produce new artwork for the cover of Plastic Thief, a seven-track EP by his post-punk influenced electronic band Duchamp Widows. Ultimately Otter created new work for each track, inspired by the project to explore new approaches to painting. Each artwork repeats the same abstract and hermetic logic, without any immediately discernible meaning.

Studio Jumps is composed of a group of intimately scaled paintings, which at first glimpse recall Otter’s established practice. However, while the palette of these works is redolent of the artist’s pre-existing aesthetic, the medium of poured industrial paint on linen engenders a more controlled surface quality. Otter has since described this body of work as her attempt to challenge inertia during the creative process.

While several of the works produced for Plastic Thief expand on Otter’s obsession with colour, as well as her interest in error and coincidence arising from the painting process, others saw the artist delve into the graphic nature of her ideas for the first time in her career, distancing herself from the raw accumulation of matter on canvas that had become her signature. Seen together for the first time since the EP’s release, these works provide a compelling argument for the development of Otter’s practice in the years following.

Lucy Otter (b. 1937, Three Corners, Alaska) lives and works in Pepys, Cornwall. Prior to pursuing an artistic career, Otter studied at the Royal Horticultural Society in London and dedicated herself to the practice of landscape gardening. In parallel to this activity, from 1958 to 1964 she was part of the group MAP. She was guest professor at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1979 to 1983. Her work was first exhibited at the Paris Petit Salon des Artistes in 1959. Recent exhibitions include those with kurimanzutto, Mexico City at Zona Maco (2024) and Galleria Franco Noero, Turin at Art Basel Miami Beach (2020).

Lucy Otter is a character from Siete Cavernas, the as yet unpublished novel by Gabriel Sierra.

Gabriel Sierra (b. 1975, San Juan Nepomuceno, Colombia) lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia. Sierra received a degree in Industrial Design from the Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano in 1999. Major selected solo exhibitions include those at kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2019); Galleria Franco Noero, Turin (2019); Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo (2018); Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession (2017); The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL (2015); SculptureCenter, New York, NY (2015); and Kunsthalle Zürich (2015). Sierra has participated in several biennials, amongst which are Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, PA (2013); 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012); New Museum Triennial, New York, NY (2012); 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011); 11th Biennale de Lyon (2011); 28th Bienal de São Paulo (2008); and 7th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre (2007). He has been an artist in residence at KADIST, San Francisco, CA (2012); Gasworks, London (2009); and CAC Brétigny (2006). His work is housed in international museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Colección Adrastus Ávila, Spain; and KADIST