{"id":17067,"date":"2021-11-24T21:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T21:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/?p=17067"},"modified":"2022-12-29T12:30:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T12:30:06","slug":"the-darkness-doesnt-go-away-if-you-hide-in-the-light-an-interview-with-artist-lucy-purrington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/other\/the-darkness-doesnt-go-away-if-you-hide-in-the-light-an-interview-with-artist-lucy-purrington\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Darkness Doesn\u2019t Go Away if You Hide in the Light\u201d: An Interview with Artist Lucy Purrington"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u201cThe darkness doesn\u2019t go away if you hide in the light\u201d:<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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An Interview with Artist Lucy Purrington<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Rich Phillips interviews Lucy Purrington, the South Wales-based art photographer, for Horrified<\/i>...<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Valleys of South Wales aren\u2019t the usual locations that spring to mind if you\u2019re trying to conjure up ghostly images, horrifying visions, and mind-bending surreal landscapes to haunt the imagination and keep you awake at night.<\/strong> But that\u2019s precisely what artist Lucy Purrington has achieved with her photography and videos, while exorcising some of her own monsters.<\/p>

\u2018When I was a child, I always had a 35mm film camera in my hand but that was my father\u2019s hobby, so I steered away from the medium as an art form in my teenage years and tried a bit of everything art-wise. However, I always had a disposable camera at every party, adventure, and night out, but I didn\u2019t really think of it as art \u2013 this was pre-phone camera days.\u2019<\/p>

\"\"Growing up in The Valleys, Lucy was surrounded by the iconic scarred landscapes of post-industrial decay sandwiched between the mostly unspoiled mountains and forests that would later feature so heavily in her art projects. The now clich\u00e9d rows of terraced houses perched precariously on the sides of vertiginous mountainsides in some apparent magical act of levitation above the valley floor, where derelict mine workings and closed (or closing) chapels and pubs seemed to stand on every street corner, was an all-too-familiar sight. In the days before closed pubs were converted into flats, closed churches were turned into Wetherspoons, and closed mine workings were turned into tourist attractions, Lucy was having her mind opened to the supernatural.<\/p>

\u2018Every Monday night, my Dad was out either playing darts or at Camera Club so me and my late mother would sit and watch X-files,<\/i> T<\/i><\/span>he Outer Limits<\/i> and Doctor Who<\/i> together. I think that\u2019s where my love for the supernatural began. Her sister, my Aunt, was really into Halloween and ghost stories, so I think they both nurtured my curiosity and made me feel comfortable in seeking out scares.<\/p>

\u2018Saying that I doubt that they expected me to sneakily watch Aliens aged 9! I still have alien invasion nightmares \u2013 in fact, had one this week. It was about these tiny black worms being ejected from a small flying plastic device that would permeate into organic living matter. The aliens were attempting order to wipe out humanity by taking control over our consciousness to save the planet from pollution and global warming. It would be the death of individuality, but better than bombs and further destruction of the planet.\u2019<\/p>

You can sense Lucy is drawn to the darkness by just looking at some of her art. The sheeted revenants that haunt a lot of her landscapes harken back to a traditional idea of ghostly encounters in lonely, liminal places, but are brought screaming up to date with high-resolution image capture techniques and lighting that doesn\u2019t shy away from showing these… things… in all their stark clarity.<\/p>

\"\"\u2018I do feel drawn to the dark; all things spooky, gothic, dystopian, or anything that explores the other side of human nature. To overlook that is to deny the duality of human existence. We\u2019re living in pretty dark times at the moment, and I find comfort in what others might think of as depressing. For me, it\u2019s a release. The darkness doesn\u2019t go away if you hide in the light.\u2019<\/p>

But it isn\u2019t just the horror, the supernatural, the shocking, that Lucy aims to convey in her work.<\/p>

\u2018My style is mainly digital portrait photography, in particular self-portraits that utilise influences of surrealism to create images that convey an emotional narrative. I explore themes of mental health through my surreal and creative self-portraits by using my own experiences as a source of inspiration. This practice allows me to attempt to externalise and transform my struggles with mental health into something tangible and relatable.<\/p>

\u2018I mostly identify with music and music videos, theatre, and dance. It\u2019s more accessible to me with my dyslexia than reading and my mind works visually so I find video art easier to connect to.\u2019<\/p>

Lucy describes being diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia aged nineteen as \u2018…profoundly uplifting. The difficulties I had at school made absolute sense to me then.\u2019 It\u2019s very often the case that an individual with a Specific Learning Difference such as dyslexia will gravitate toward more practical or visual areas of work, often unconsciously. When she decided to apply to University to study Photography as a \u2018mature\u2019 student, she found her SpLD presented some particular challenges \u2013 \u2018My tutors were incredibly supportive and spent extra time with me. I couldn\u2019t have graduated without the additional help they gave me. My approach to written work had to change. I began every assignment weeks before my peers and started my dissertation research the year before it was supposed to begin!<\/p>

\"\"\u2018Studying photographic art at university really opened my eyes to photography as a contemporary art medium. There was a big focus on studying conceptual photography, culture, representation, and meaning… I think that if I hadn\u2019t studied photography, I would have slowed down and lost my way long ago.\u2019<\/p>

Being inspired by visual mediums started early for Lucy, some of which continues to resonate in her work \u2013 \u2018I grew up in a house with loads of vinyl records and music videotapes. Both fascinated me; I loved looking through sleeve artwork and I think that has had a lasting impact on the style of my work. The ones that stick in my mind are David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, The Cure, Pink Floyd, Madness… I was a big fan of Storm (Thorgerson \u2013 influential designer behind many classic album covers) growing up and as an adult, I have books of his album artwork.\u2019<\/p>

Lucy cites other influences on her own style and approach to her art \u2013 \u2018I draw inspiration from all sorts of sources; music, album artwork, music videos. My personal tastes in photography are more towards the documentary side and avant-garde feminist work. I love Barbara Kruger, David Lynch, Jeff Wall, Erwin Wurm, Cornelia Parker.<\/p>

\u2018The Welsh landscape is a big part of my work and its influence has now evolved into almost being a character that is part of my photographs. My surroundings, as in the valley and mountains I grew up around, often feature in creating a narrative in my photography and I count myself extremely fortunate to have glorious beaches, forests, and mountains on my doorstep in Wales.\u2019<\/p>

Lucy has turned her talents not just to still photography but also the moving image, and much of her dark, surrealist, haunting imagery bleeds into this medium also. Music videos such as the promo work for the band Me Against Misery and their song \u2018Devil at My Side<\/a>\u2019 leave a lingering disquiet in the viewer, long after the video has ended. Shades of Michael Hordern being haunted by a ghastly bed sheet in Jonathon Miller\u2019s Whistle and I\u2019ll Come to You<\/a>, and the eerily empty woods seen in Lawrence Gordon Clark\u2019s adaptation of A Warning to the Curious<\/a> abound in this work. The video Lucy created to accompany the song \u2018Stones<\/a>\u2019 by Bel Blue has a folk horror vibe running through its\u2019 monochrome veins. \u2018I\u2019ve made a few music videos and two performance video pieces. Both explore themes of trauma and memory; one very clearly embedded in this theme and the other evolved to speak about a post-industrial landscape that bears the scars of Welsh mining and the relationship man has with this.\u2019<\/p>

While \u2018the darkness\u2019 isn\u2019t all that Lucy is about, it does feature to a greater or lesser extent in a lot of her pieces. Even her more \u2018everyday\u2019 photography, such as a series of photographs she has captured of discarded Covid-19 masks, and plastic litter caught in the branches of trees, reflect the kinds of post-apocalyptic imagery often used in horror cinema to elicit feelings of unease or disquiet in the viewer, even if they don\u2019t instantly understand why. \u2018I do very much enjoy psychological or supernatural horror films, particularly British or foreign cinema. I recently watched Midsommar<\/i> and Hereditary<\/i> and certain scenes and music from the films are stuck on a loop in my head. The score of both movies is superb and the visuals in Midsommar<\/i> are genius… I read an article about how people with prolonged or continuous bouts of anxiety seek out controlled \u201cscares\u201d because that anxiety has become such a norm that measurable amounts are comforting.\u2019<\/p>

\"\"It isn\u2019t only the final image that is important to Lucy in her own mental health management \u2013 \u2018The process of creating, being outdoors and walking around the mountainside or Welsh beaches are a form of mindfulness. It\u2019s a great excuse to get outdoors and spend time in nature.<\/p>

\u2018My focus is usually on using photography as a tool to promote my wellbeing and talk about mental health. These are conversations that more people are having after the pandemic, which is a good thing. I hope that my work touches people and makes connections for people to feel encouraged to talk about their feelings and wellbeing. That is my dream project.\u2019<\/p>

As an artist who is willing to put herself in front of the lens almost as much as she is to spend time behind it, another aspect of Lucy\u2019s personality comes across in her video production \u2013 \u2018Humour is a connector and a disguise for someone who\u2019s actually pretty anxious about being in front of the camera. I think living in such absurd times of dystopia, you need a sense of humour. As for irreverence, I think it\u2019s healthy to question the doctrines that may prevent betterment or learning and throw out the rulebook if it means a fairer playing field for everyone.\u2019<\/p>

But if she weren\u2019t creating her own art, she would find it hard to stop being creative \u2018in one way or another; I love gardening, crafting, cooking, decorating my house. If I\u2019m not actively \u201cdoing\u201d myself, I\u2019m usually enjoying other people\u2019s art, be that music, theatre, cinema.\u2019<\/p>

\u2018Transformation\u2019 by Olivier de Sagazan, and Cyprien Gaillard\u2019s video piece titled \u2018Nightlife\u2019 she cites as being amongst some of her recent favourite work by other artists that have stayed with her since she first encountered them.<\/p>

Lucy\u2019s work can be viewed directly from her website<\/a>, and you can keep up with her on social media at Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>. You can buy prints of her art, including those featured in this article, from her online shop<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRich Phillips\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Dividing his time between helping disabled students (by day), and creating weird imagery (by candlelight), Rich Phillips may, or may not, actually exist. If he does, he may one day follow through on his threat to make a website for his artwork, if he thought anyone would be interested. For those people who are interested, he has recently learned he is neurodivergent and is taller than you probably imagined, but not that tall. He is chuffed to have had some of his scribbles chosen to decorate the pages of the Horrified Horror Stories for Christmas and Folk Horror Stories collections. He likes Rum & Raisin flavour ice cream, and his favourite spoon is Welsh.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Read more by jon<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rich Phillips interviews Lucy Purrington, the South Wales-based art photographer, for Horrified…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[672],"tags":[1946],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/purrington-ft.jpeg?fit=684%2C296&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17067"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17099,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17067\/revisions\/17099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}