Lydia Mutone: Blankets
September 8–22, 2023
Reception: 5–7pm Friday, September 15
VCUarts and The Anderson are pleased to present Blankets, a solo exhibition of paintings from alumni Lydia Mutone (BFA 2021, Communication Arts major, Painting & Printmaking minor) on view on the first floor of the gallery. Mutone’s practice centers on figures within intimate settings. She employs abstraction by pushing images back and forth within a digital editing realm and funneling the compilation into oil paint. Mutone works to mediate her opaque geometric paint application with the overall impact of translucent layered fluidity. This obfuscation of her digital touch plays with legibility and allows the viewer to piece together the composition. Duplications of a single subject are in motion, yet housed in a stagnant space. In these dramatic interactions, limbs are revealed and concealed as the figures stumble over each other to take the foreground.
Mutone’s work uses the bedroom as a vehicle for fostering intimacy between the viewer and the muse. It relies on a close connection with the subject and serves as a collaboration and exploration of their relationship.
Lydia Mutone is a Richmond-based artist whose work has been exhibited at 1708 Gallery, Field, ADA Gallery, and the Anderson Gallery. Mutone is currently a resident at the Visual Arts Center (Richmond, VA). In October she will be showing in the SECAC juried exhibition at Try-me Gallery, as well as the group show “Third Space” at the Visual Arts Center. In the fall of 2024 Mutone will be an artist in residence at the Anderson Ranch, in Snomass Village, Colorado.
lydiamutone.cargo.site
lemutone@gmail.com
@lydiamutone