Albenga
Painting, 30.5 x 22.8 cm, acrylic on wooden board
Artwork Description
This painting reimagines a view from a church in Italy, which I visited in 2025. This painting was first lightly sketched from a photograph I took, and then painting from my memory, allowing the colour and mark making to take precedence over literal detail. By choosing a neon pink base layer, a glow beneath the composition evokes the warmth and nostalgia I associate with the moment.
Albenga began as a view from a church I visited in Italy in 2025, but it is not intended as an accurate record of that place. Instead of remembering locations exactly as they were, I tend to remember how they made me feel. In translating this memory onto canvas, I chose to work from a neon pink base layer, a colour that has little to do with the literal palette of the scene but everything to do with the warmth and nostalgia I associate with it.
For me, this process of painting is itself a kind of crossing: a movement from a real, physical place into an imagined, emotional one. The work sits between documentation and invention. It crosses the border between what I saw and what I felt, prioritising interpretation and adaptation. In this sense, the painting does not depict Italy so much as it depicts the act of remembering Italy- a crossing that happens internally, long after the physical journey has ended, as places are reshaped and softened by nostalgia. I wanted the neon pink to signal to the viewer that this is not a faithful window onto a real location, but a threshold into memory itself, where colour and feeling replace precision, and where the viewer is invited to cross with me into a version of the scene that is as much felt as it is seen.
For me, this process of painting is itself a kind of crossing: a movement from a real, physical place into an imagined, emotional one. The work sits between documentation and invention. It crosses the border between what I saw and what I felt, prioritising interpretation and adaptation. In this sense, the painting does not depict Italy so much as it depicts the act of remembering Italy- a crossing that happens internally, long after the physical journey has ended, as places are reshaped and softened by nostalgia. I wanted the neon pink to signal to the viewer that this is not a faithful window onto a real location, but a threshold into memory itself, where colour and feeling replace precision, and where the viewer is invited to cross with me into a version of the scene that is as much felt as it is seen.
Grace Lloyd
My name is Grace, I’m a Fine Art and Film student at Lancaster University. I have a passion for both my subjects and since I'm yet to settle on a preference I try to keep a clear distinction between them.
I love to travel and I find that a lot of my memories of places that I have visited shape and influence my work, whether intentionally or not. Rather than aiming for literal accuracy, I am interested in how memory, feeling and emotions make an impression upon what I create.
I love to travel and I find that a lot of my memories of places that I have visited shape and influence my work, whether intentionally or not. Rather than aiming for literal accuracy, I am interested in how memory, feeling and emotions make an impression upon what I create.