Lily van der Stokker: Thank You Darling
29 April – 18 September 2022
Camden Arts Centre, London
Colours so bright that they sing off the gallery walls, the luminescent paintings don’t appear like paintings. They are more like expansive translucent thought bubbles hovering against wall surfaces.
The first work, Thank You Wallpainting, greets you with brightly popping coloured flowers in orange, yellow, pink, and purple captured in a vast blue rectangle like a billboard sign. In the bottom right corner, in bubble writing, are the words 'thank you.' Right now, as we slip into some form of post covid state, it’s hard not to see this as a work nodding thanks to our NHS. So, I was surprised to learn that this work has been circulating since 1994. Lily van der Stokker’s works have a universal and timeless quality, making monumental – quite literally – seemingly small sentiments writ large.
Installation view of Lily van der Stokker, Thank You Wallpainting, 1994 - 2022. Acrylic paint on wall and mixed media.
Her works begin as small drawings on paper, which she makes prolifically; there are hundreds of them. But interestingly, and rather wonderfully, there is no hierarchy between these small paper-based drawings and those that get blown up onto walls. When made monumental, they become an architectonic response to their site, but they retain that unique linear quality of drawn lines and the feeling of paper thinness. To confound their situation further, van der Stokker also pulls objects into the installations – chairs and squashy furniture, rugs, flowers in vases, entire kitchen areas, and box-like extensions protruding from the gallery walls. These objects are recognisable features, things that belong to everyone, something you see in everyday life. But at the same time, they are unique to this situation, this particular context or narrative, belonging only to the artwork they feature in. These objects are intermingled with their paintings in rigorous detail and finished with painted or coloured surfaces of their own, seamlessly connected in colour. It is like they get plugged into the painting, sealed with paint at the point at which it touches the gallery walls.
Lily van der Stokker, installation view (detail): Red Rashes on Face Not Itchy, 2019 - 2022. Acrylic paint on wall and wood. Dimensions not given (my own photos)
Lily van der Stokker, installation view: Red Rashes on Face Not Itchy, 2019 - 2022. Acrylic paint on wall and wood.
Lily van der Stokker, installation view (detail): Red Rashes on Face Not Itchy, 2019 - 2022. Acrylic paint on wall and wood. Dimensions not given (my own photo)
The tension of materiality and the visual language is directed straight into the realm of verbal language as these works deal with text as subject. The texts are the ‘most important…everything around it is [a] support system’ (Camden Art Centre, 2022). Van der Stokker’s doodle-like words hold a sense of purity and honesty. Some are ambiguous philosophical phrases or feel like existential issues, such as ‘no improvement no progress’. Others are seemingly smaller statements like ‘red rashes on face not itchy.’ They appear on the wall like snippets of conversations or fragments of thoughts. Again, there is a universality to them; these words could be your thoughts, her thoughts, anyone’s thoughts, or a collective of thoughts.
It is a deluge of full-frontal femininity – flowers, patterns, curled and swirled handwriting, sugar puff sweet colours containing personal, domestic, and sentimental contemplations. Even the kitchen sink is in there. It is an invitation to enjoy the visuals, full of what van der Stokker calls ‘positive visual garbage’ (Camden Art Centre, 2022). There are even bin bags as part of the works, as drawings on the walls in Bibababyboomer, and as part of the installation in Retro Kitchen, as she drives this point home.
Lily van der Stokker, installation view: Retro Kitchen, 2021 - 2022. Acrylic paint on wall and wood and polyester with mixed media. Dimensions not given (my own photo)
Still, these seemingly friendly artworks lull you into a false sense of security to make you feel more comfortable facing up to difficult subjects. Family, children, ageing, doing your taxes, relationships, the home – these are loaded subjects. The disarming innocence of this work is not to be underestimated. In Bibababyboomer, a dripping and drooling purple monster of an abstract shape looms over one wall with the words, ‘most of my female friends have a kid…always talk about pregnancy stuff.’ Another work is like a massive empty to-do list or whiteboard, leaning against the wall, and at the top, it says ‘childcare’. But at the same time, she talks of smaller things, day-to-day stuff, people’s names, ages ‘income tax-paper need it for filling in…’ a bizarre blob low down on the gallery wall that includes the words ‘I have no idea’. The text is used to carry difficult subjects, humour, and throwaway comments with no resolution. Through her subject matter and imagery, the artist challenges feminine and feminised things that are seen as lesser, less valued, less serious – don’t get lost in its sweetness; these works are anything but sweet and couldn’t be more serious.
Lily van der Stokker, installation view (detail): Bibababyboomer, 2003 - 2022. Acrylic paint on wall and mixed media. Dimensions not given (my own photo)
Lily van der Stokker, installation view: Childcare, 1991- 2019. Acrylic paint on linen and panel. Dimensions not given (my own photo)
Lily van der Stokker, installation view: No Improvement No Progress, 2009 - 2022. Acrylic paint on wall and mixed media. Dimensions not given (my own photo)
While I enjoyed this show’s subject matter a lot, it has to be said that it doesn’t extend to my practice. However, I see many unexpected parallels between my works and Lily van der Stokker’s. The use of colour – the pink, the feminine, the domestic, the graphic. And the flatness – the sculptural paintings, the scale. I think these are things I have been viewing as problems in my work, whereas in van der Stokker’s, she utilises those issues to become the strength of the work.
There is definitely something in this scaling up for me. Her drawings literally contract from original drawings that expand onto walls and back again. She creates a terrain by upping the scale and bringing precise three-dimensional elements in. The flatness becomes a tangible physical attribute that heightens the experience of viewing it as an installation. This is the embodiment of taking up space as both a mental and physical act. It is the amplitude I need. From the beginning of this MA, I have wanted to realise an installation as a habitable drawing, and I think van der Stokker could be my ‘in’ in influencing how I could apply this to my work.
Lily van der Stokker: Thank You Darling (2022) (exhibition) Camden Art Centre, London, 29 April - 18 September 2022
2022 Lily van der Stokker: Thank You Darling (2022) (exhibition) Camden Art Centre, London, 29 April - 18 September 2022 [exhibition guide] Camden Art Centre, London
Camden Art Centre (2022) Lily van der Stokker: Thank You Darling (online) Available at: https://camdenartcentre.org/whats-on/lily-van-der-stokker (accessed 03/05/2022)
Camden Art Centre (2022) Lily van der Stokker on Thank You Darling at Camden Art Centre, 2022. This film was produced by Jared Schiller for Camden Art Centre on the occasion of Lily van der Stokker's exhibition 'Thank You Darling', 29 April - 18 September 2022. Available at: https://youtu.be/akkIwGBFUqs (accessed 15/06/2022)