Lydia

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Lydia is 79 years old and has had a lifelong struggle with schizophrenia. She has been institutionalised since 2004.

In 2020 she was encouraged to draw by her daughter Sally who noticed a notepad and some felt tips sitting on a nearby table. Sally perched the pad onto Lydia’s lap and invited her to choose a colour. She chose pink, studying the quality of how the pen felt in her hands for several minutes before removing the top and making her first mark.

Since then Lydia has produced a drawing every week.

The work although seemingly simple and naive, contains a depth and beauty, which only reveals itself as one quietly contemplates each image. The drawings are often accompanied by brief metaphysical statements: ‘Redemption of the Soul’, ‘I am at Peace with Myself’, being two that spring to mind as I write this introductory text, surrounded by several folios of her uniquely strange otherworldy attempts to communicate something other.

Her work was chosen from amongst many as a recent finalist in an exhibition organised by The College of Psychic Studies in January 2023.

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