Nestled on the top floor of Kindred, away from the hustle of the Hall and the bustle of the bar, the Library is home to not just books, but an entire wall of paintings by Somerset-based artist Lucy Evans.
Anna Anderson, Kindred’s founder and director, also happens to be Lucy’s daughter, and tells the story of how this striking body of work made its home in Bradmore House – on a wall which has come to be the backdrop for plenty of weddings, private dinners, and days of co-working.
“Growing up with an artist parent, you get used to living in a home filled with incredible artwork. So when our interior designer raised the question of what artwork to hang in Kindred, I knew exactly who to ask. Now, Kindred is adorned with paintings I grew up with, that I remember my mother working on meticulously in her studio, or outdoors, often wrapped up against the driving rain so she could capture the colours of the sky properly in that moment.
“She would often point to a far off horizon, or cloud and ask us, ‘What colour is that?’ And the obvious answer would never suffice, but instead we would discuss the violet, sepia, ochre, and cobalt we could see in the landscape”.
◆
For Anna, those portraits, landscapes and still life paintings represent a key part of what the building and business is all about.
“Kindred for me is more than just a business. We ask our community to bring their whole selves to the space, and connect on a deeper level than simply asking ‘What do you do?’ My mother taught us to embrace creativity, see the true colour of things, and think beyond what you can simply see in front of you.
“It brings me a lot of joy and pride to be able to share her paintings with our community, and my hope is that it makes Kindred feel a bit more like home”.
It seems it’s not just London-based interior designers and her daughter who approve, as this month sees Lucy’s first full collection in 10 years go on display at the SomerARTon Gallery in Somerton, Somerset. Perhaps appropriately, the paintings focus on the Somerset Levels landscape.
“I’ve always tried to find things to paint that other people don’t bother with,” Lucy explains, describing the “wide and flat marshland with massive skies, but with wonderful eerie mists and fogs at dusk” along with the “ribbons of sunlight” and wildlife that found their way into the frame — at least when lockdown walkers went home.
◆
In a year of stopping and starting, Lucy took herself out into the countryside like many of us but, armed with her palette and paints, went some way in replacing the body of work now on the walls of Bradmore House.
With the exhibition proving an overwhelming success and the paintings themselves being bought where they stand, it may not be so long before another collection comes calling. But what of those hanging in Hammersmith?
“To see my paintings go to Kindred as a kind of permanent collection was very exciting. The works there span my entire painting life of over 25 years,” Lucy says, noting her jack-of-all-trades creative history before taking up painting as she turned forty.
“Paintings are always on the wall to enhance people’s day-to-day life, reminding them of other places and other paths of life. They are miniature windows on another world as you walk past them and they should be worth a long look, at times, pulling you in for a moment to be somewhere else.”
Fortunately for those losing themselves in Kindred’s library, those paintings, at least, seem set to stay.
For more, see www.lucyevanspaintings.co.uk.
