Lydia

Lydia is a mixed-media artwork on 360gsm art paper by Bay Backner. The work contrasts expressive lines in black oil pastel with highly-pigmented coloured inks, acrylic paint and spray paint. This is one of Bay’s nine research sketches for her oil painting series Flower Women, exclusively available at Runway Gallery.

This new 35 x 50cm artwork explores how we subconsciously experience emotion. Bay sketched the faces that moved her in newspaper photographs, then responded to her reactions with layers of colour and line. She returns to each artwork many times until she has captured an emotion. Often layering further colour and white spray paint. For Bay, the white expresses the disconnect we can feel between our emotions and the names we give to them.

THE BOXING DAY STUDIO SALE

This season is important to us here at Runway Gallery and after the year we’ve all had we thought we’d bring some extra Christmas joy by announcing an exciting opportunity for our clients to have access to rare artworks from the archives.

A great selection of AP’s, lost editions and super special pieces curated especially for you – click here to view the full collection. 

The Studio Sale will go live from Boxing Day – please be aware that these prices won’t stick around forever, so don’t hang about!

About the Artist

Bay Backner is a contemporary female surrealist working from her studio in Valencia, Spain. Her work speaks about our identities and how they are subconsciously shaped by our experiences. Through her art she seeks to reveal our deepest, hidden selves.

Bay graduated in physics from Oxford University, but identified more with philosophy than science. Poet Muriel Rukeyser’s idea that “the universe is made of stories, not of atoms” profoundly resonated with her and began her path towards becoming a surrealist painter. Bay spent seven years studying the techniques of the Renaissance artists. Her artwork effortlessly blends these Renaissance techniques with a style and palette drawn from contemporary fashion and media.

Bay also studied at The Ruskin School of Art (Life Drawing, 2002) and Central Saint Martins, UAL (Experimental Printmaking with Sean Myers, 2006; Textiles, 2007). She exhibits nationally and internationally. Recent London exhibitions include Blacks Club with Runway Gallery and The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea. Her work has been featured by publications including Grazia Magazine, and she will have a solo London show with Runway Gallery in Autumn 2021.