Two women artists who have inspired one another present their work side by side at Gallery 286 this month. Textile artist – and sometime guitarist – Libby Lawrie has been a muse and model to Sophy Dury for more than ten years, visiting her studio once a week. With their concurrent exhibitions: ‘Re-make/Re-model: new & unfinished textiles’ (by Lawrie), and ‘Sculptures’ (by Dury), the connections between their work, as friends, makers, and as women, are revealed.
Dury’s sculptures and reliefs, for example, move from depictions of Libby, her own muse, to other women who have influenced her more broadly, and to the idea of the female muse in general, recreating Federico Fellini’s ‘faces’, referencing photographs the Italian director kept, sent to him by women who wanted to star in his films. Set against textile backgrounds that recall domestic interiors, wallpapers, curtains, carpets or gardens, Dury’s sculptures also touch on the idea that a muse can be at home, as much as on screen, or in a photograph.
From ‘Re-Make / Re-Model: New and Unfinished Textiles’, by Libby Lawrie
Textiles also connect Dury’s three-dimensional works to Lawrie’s. A series of abstract, tribalesque fabric pieces, created using a combination of digital and handwoven techniques – some of which can be worn, and some of which are still in progress – give an insight into the artist’s fluid, improvisational way of working. Perhaps the reason why over the years she has worked on diverse commissions in film and music, producing work with prolific musicians such as David Bowie, Bryan Ferry and Paul McCartney.
Conventionally considered ‘women’s work’, Lawrie’s designs do not address feminine archetypes in the way Dury’s portraits do, but her sensual shapes, curves and patterns, Lawrie explains, are informed in part by the body, as well as architecture and nature, and music. Playing with colour-coding and form, they refuse to settle for being one thing – feminine or masculine, colour or monochrome, contemporary or ancient.
Though abstract next to Dury’s figurative works, there is a shared appreciation of free forms and an exuberant, rebellious aesthetic between the two bodies of work – and a poignant exploration of what it means to create, and to be a woman.
Libby II, 2012, by Sophy Dury. Lawrie has visited Dury’s studio every Tuesday for ten years, often posing for her friend
Lawrie’s latest body of work marks the start of her further adventures in textile design and wearable artwork
Anna Magnani, 2017, by Sophy Dury. The artist has been creating these sculpture-potraits since 1984
From ‘Re-Make / Re-Model: New and Unfinished Textiles’, by Libby Lawrie
INFORMATION
‘Re-make / Re-model: new & unfinished textiles’ and ’Sculptures’ are on view until 31 October. For more information, visit the Gallery 286 website
ADDRESS
Gallery 286
286 Earl’s Court Road
London SW5 9AS
-
How Billecart-Salmon became the hospitality industry’s champagne of choiceNeil Ridley ventures into a subterranean temple to patience and precision beneath the village of Aÿ-Champagne, France, and discovers a winery not of spectacle, but of soul
-
In Baku Sakashita’s new lighting collection, hand-dyed silk threads are delicately illuminatedIn ‘Haku’, ultra-fine LEDs are woven within plant-dyed threads, showcasing intricacy, artistry and traditional Japanese craftsmanship
-
Discover the chic simplicity of CC-Steding jewelleryNic Farnan and Ben Chaplin create delicate silver jewellery in their east London studio
-
Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekFrom sumo wrestling to Singaporean fare, medieval manuscripts to magnetic exhibitions, the Wallpaper* team have traversed the length and breadth of culture in the British capital this week
-
Viewers are cast as voyeurs in Tai Shani’s crimson-hued London exhibitionBritish artist Tai Shani creates mystical other worlds through sculpture, performance and film. Step inside at Gathering
-
Who are the nine standout artists that shaped Frieze London 2025?Amid the hectic Frieze London schedule, many artists were showcasing extraordinary work this year. Here are our favourites
-
Doc’n Roll Festival returns with a new season of underground music filmsNow in its twelfth year, the grassroots festival continues to platform subcultural stories and independent filmmakers outside the mainstream
-
Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors' picks of the weekThe London office of Wallpaper* had a very important visitor this week. Elsewhere, the team traverse a week at Frieze
-
Chantal Joffe paints the truth of memory and motherhood in a new London showA profound chronicler of the intimacies of the female experience, Chantal Joffe explores the elemental truth of family dynamics for a new exhibition at Victoria Miro
-
Leo Costelloe turns the kitchen into a site of fantasy and uneaseFor Frieze week, Costelloe transforms everyday domesticity into something intimate, surreal and faintly haunted at The Shop at Sadie Coles
-
Can surrealism be erotic? Yes if women can reclaim their power, says a London exhibition‘Unveiled Desires: Fetish & The Erotic in Surrealism, 1924–Today’ at London’s Richard Saltoun gallery examines the role of desire in the avant-garde movement
