THE SIT DOWN
05: LYDIA HAMBLET
Originally from Kent, Lydia studied at Camberwell before taking up a residency at Topolski Studios, where she immersed herself in reportage drawing — an old haunt of reportage drawing, where artists once sketched wars and movements before photography. It became a lesson in immediacy, in catching the atmosphere of a space, in re-learning how to draw sound and motion. That sensibility has stayed with her.
A year out between her BA and the RCA proved formative. She travelled to India — a country connected to her through her grandfather — and the colour, vibrancy, and vastness of its landscapes became a catalyst for her printmaking experiments. Screenprinting and monoprinting gave her a technical grounding, and whilst at the RCA, Lydia started working at a new scale, producing vast four-metre works on rolls of paper. The challenge of working that big — technical, physical, immersive — became central to her approach when she decided to begin painting. Lydia’s practice sits between scale and intimacy, colour and memory. Her work resists being neatly photographed — it thrives in presence, in energy, in the act of looking.
Her subject matter often begins with place: sports pitches, parks, collective spaces where bodies move in rhythm. From there, she builds atmospheres rather than straightforward depictions — pushing for a scale that engulfs, a sense of presence that feels lived rather than observed. She’s interested in phenomenology and the experience of place; Edward Relph’s Place and Placelessness has been a touchstone. Alongside that, poetry has become a quiet influence — many of her titles are fragments of poems, titles often borrowed from Alice Oswald or Zaffar Kunial — giving each work an added rhythm without being prescriptive.
For Lydia, the most vital works come when she trusts her instincts: chasing scale, colour, and the elusive energy of a place made present. Lydia has exhibited in London and abroad, with a solo show at Pictorum Gallery in 2023 and more recently a small solo in San Remo.
PF: Who or what has influenced your work the most?
It’s counterintuitive, but probably those who made me feel like I couldn’t do it is what has pushed me the hardest. Beyond that, a lot of recent work has been influenced by the poetry I’ve been reading. In particular, Alice Oswald and Zaffar Kunial. Both of them hold a deep attentiveness to landscape but approach it with different sensibilities. It’s reflective and immersive and I keep finding myself returning to their writing.
PF: Walk us through your creative process?
A lot of work starts with drawing but I’ve recently found myself reflecting on spaces from memory. Compositional frameworks allow each painting to become an exercise, while reflecting on ‘weather narratives’. This has been a focal point of my work for some time now, but comes and goes. There’s only so much I try to map out with a work, I try to be as playful as possible, letting the painting dictate its own direction.
PF: What do you want people to feel or take away from your art?
I was at a Hollie Cook gig recently and she said ‘joy is the biggest act of resistance’. I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I suppose that’s what I want people to take away from my work. Even when I’ve made work during dark periods, I’ve been asked why it doesn’t necessarily come across - particularly with my colour choices. I think it’s a ‘fake it til you make it’ moment. I want the work to feel joyful and therefore, an act of resistance.
PF: How important is the viewer’s interpretation versus your intention?
It’s not something I think about when making work, to be honest. Abstract work will always be interpreted in many ways, I think there’s so much beauty in that. I try to hint towards my intention with how I title the works anyway and I suppose that could always influence a viewer’s interpretation. Sometimes it’s more subtle than other times.
PF: If you could have dinner with any artist who would it be?
Having just listened to the 'Death of the Artist' podcast, Lee Krasner.