Revealed Wednesday 30 June.

Lucy Heaton is an artist interested in how we describe art; those slippery moments of articulation and misarticulation or that moment when someone else’s description of an artwork overtakes the artist’s. Lucy uses games, words and external cues to explore collaboration in layered performances and videos.

Un/seen Work

My video work ‘Upend’ explores mimicry and movement. The word Echolalia (which refers to an automatic verbal repetition of another person’s words) mentioned by the previous artist, Taya Franco, fed into ideas I was having about repetition and loops in video. I began to consider the quasi-irresistible physical repetition/contagion of yawning, in comparison to the insistence of intentional repetition. I decided to mimic the movements of an upended ladybird as it rocked to and fro, trying to gather the momentum to turn itself upright. I was particularly caught up in the ladybird’s efforts, as it tipped its exposed belly into lopsided positions and reached its legs out to grasp for leverage. I translated this into my own movement from the inside of a playground spinning bowl, also comparing the movement to breakdancing and a winding clockface. This playful exploration lept in a different direction to Taya’s work, whilst also speaking to the tone and ideas she expressed. The process of passing ideas between artists to create a sequence of works was a very generous structure for collaboration. What would happen if this verbal relay race had more laps, repeating as a cyclical chain of artwork, rather than a linear arc?

Un/seen Piecemeal