'I am interested in the idea that the corpse or cadaver is a naturally occurring image - it is the perfect likeness of the living person, and yet it has become fundamentally different. My work explores the movement of images, and plays with the degree to which they are separate from first hand experience. Moments of trauma are structured into compositions taken from sources such as coats of arms and propaganda posters. Walking a line between documentation and symbolism, these works seek to question the way in which you read them.'
Lucy's drawings utilise found imagery sourced from photojournalistic reportage. Typically Lucy uses graphite for the main substance of her drawings to which enamel paint, ink and gold leaf are added. Merging photo-originated images with different forms of patterning, Skaer creates shifting collages that move from the emotive to the reified. At play here is our familiarity with the compositional structure of Venn diagrams, heraldry, oriental porcelain design and Rorsach ink blots.
Lucy's work also comprises of public interventions, which often involve subtle and potentially invisible interactions in public spaces. Past projects include the secreting of moth and butterfly pupae in criminal courts with the chance that they may hatch during a trial, and the placing of a scorpion and diamond side by side on an Amsterdam street.
Alongside the work 'Diagrams and Banners [Two], purchased for the collection, Lucy has been commissioned to create four unlimited-edition posters. The commission 'C4 [A Long Second Divided in Two Pairs]' is inspired by the context of Channel 4, using images from archive broadcast material. The posters, like the original material, are for distribution, and touch upon issues such as censorship and the output of information.
Lucy was born in Cambridge in 1975, and graduated in 1997 with a BA (hons) in Fine Art, from the Environmental Art Department at Glasgow School of Art. She is a founding member of the artists' collaborative group 'Henry VIII's Wives'. Lucy lives and works in Glasgow.
