Negotiating a pathway through art production is fraught with difficulties, challenges and contradictions. These come variously disguised or defined, for example, as theoretical discourse, public indifference, critical accountability. There is also a perceived expectation to contextualise and define ones work both personally and to a frequently sceptical wider audience.

Against this background, which most artists accept as a ‘part of the territory’, the desire to explore issues of a highly personal and intimate nature are rehearsed and played out. Anne Lydiat is an artist whose profoundly personal experiences form the core of her work and provide a springboard for questioning the values, traditions and conventions of visual expression and representation. One of the significant and recurring aspects of her work, whatever media she adopts, is a concern for language and the meanings associated with it. These meanings are often rooted in historical and cultural values, some of which she accepts and others she vigorously challenges. Anne Lydiat’s work is make with an awareness and understanding of contemporary theoretical debate, yet it is neither ideologically bound nor illustrative in its intention. The formal and physical characteristics of the sculptural, photographic and installation pieces evidence an understanding of materials and processes as related to direct personal history and experience. Her choice of materials and the references to labour, growth and death are all potent elements of a critically and individually cultivated language.

Site Gallery is pleased to be associated with the production of this publication as it is a pertinent summary of the key aspects if Anne Lydiat’s work and reflection of her life itself over the past five years.

Carol Maund

Director. Site Gallery