Lydia Pettit
In Your Anger, I See Fear

Opening—28 April 2023, 6 to 9 PM

Lydia Pettit, What Lies Beneath, 2023. © The artist. Photo © Elliott Mickleburgh. Courtesy Galerie Judin, Berlin

“For some people, ignoring anger and pain ruins their lives and turns into something violent. That is so dangerous. None of us have been raised to deal with anger.” 

Lydia Pettit

The body and the self as her sanctuary—and a battleground. In search of a truce, the work of American artist Lydia Pettit (born 1991) oscillates between these two poles. It spans large-format paintings, quilts, finely wrought embroidery, and many stages in between. Paintings are extended or virtually smothered by textiles, while conversely, quilts and fabrics may feature painted segments. Pettit’s work revolves around safeguarding and exposure. Palpability has a special role to play in this context. It is about the actual touching of materials, about the caressing of bodies, including one’s own, but also about being touched in a figurative—and sometimes negative—sense.

Lydia Pettit, Is This All I Am to You?, 2022. © The artist. Photo © Elliott Mickleburgh. Courtesy Galerie Judin, Berlin

Lydia Pettit, Mercy, 2022. © The artist. Photo © Elliott Mickleburgh. Courtesy Galerie Judin, Berlin

“Exposure became empowering for me. I put the most feared parts of my body front and center, the stretch marks on my breasts, my round belly, my double chin, and the cellulite rippling across my butt and thighs. … The more I stared at my body, crafted it, normalized it, the more value I began to hold for myself. My canvas was a mirror, and I reckoned with myself in each brushstroke.”

Lydia Pettit