Renowned, Spanish-based artist Lydia Hoffnungsthal is delighted to announce her first solo exhibition in the UK which is being showcased at Lightgallery, 5A Porchester Place, London from September 26th – 1st October 2006.

Inspiration for Lydia’s Summer Daydreams is drawn from the milieu and palettes of her home in the Balearics. Her distinctive, mixed-media technique uses contrasting colors, textures and materials; to explore the dynamics of human emotion, movement and life at its most natural;

“I like to capture the peculiar and stranger instances in life, people in their most private moments when they do not feel observed and can therefore be totally themselves – uncovered and honest. In portraying the comicalities of human beings, it is more often that not, that one achieves a new dimension of dignity.”

Lydia aims to intrigue, amuse and uplift the viewer. Dynamic movements and energy are captured with intense, colourful brushstrokes and in some instances, actual moving parts (as in her “Swinging Wave”).

She has a deep fascination with texture – and seeks to obtain tension in her work by incorporating local raw materials into her paintings - such as hessian sack cloth woven with silk, pure pigments contrasted with oil colours, fine cloth stitched with rough string, clay, sand, bamboo and even freshly sown grass! The result is that Lydia’s work is animated, witty radiating humor and vitality.

Lydia already has an impressive following in mainland Europe, exhibiting there for the past twenty years. Some her exhibitions to date include solo exhibitions at the Gallery L´Espai de Mallorca in Barcelona 2004 and Centre Cultural Felanitx and Son Macia in 1997.

Lydia also featured at the ‘Art Fair Art Cologne’ in the Gallery Schröder und Dörr, Cologne, Germany in 1996 and 1997 as well as Art Fair Art Multiple in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1995-1998.

This summer she also has five pieces of her work exhibited in A&D Gallery’s Summer Exhibition in Chiltern Street, London.

Mobile 2004 Oil, picadis on canvas, tryptich 61cm x 50cm

Redwine I 2006 Oil on canvas 97 cm x 162 cm

Swinging Wave 2006 Mixed media on canas 89 cm x 116 cm