Lily van der Stokker is a Dutch artist based in Amsterdam and New York, who is being exhibited at Tate St Ives at the moment (it’s the largest exhibition of her work in the UK so far!).
She explores ideas that are usually avoided in art, like being decorative, sentimental or nice. Her style can be quite challenging to people, because there is a set way of thinking about art, and she is doing something which is completely different and very feminine. Her artworks are often about beauty and love, relationships, family and the everyday. She designs them on A4 paper using felt tips, highlighters and pencil crayons, and then paints them directly onto the gallery walls.
She creates large wall drawings in pastel or luminous colours and often includes pieces of furniture and rugs in the same colours. She also includes short sentences that sound like things that might just cross your mind, like needing to buy a winter coat but worrying that your size might have run out:
In the beautiful location of St Ives, these pieces look wonderful! The sun coming through the big, curved windows makes the colours seem their brightest. They look like dolly mixtures – good enough to eat! They were certainly an inspiration to the kids who took part in the half term activities in the family area, as you can see by these pictures that I found on the drawing wall:
(If you drew these pictures, let me know in the comments!)
