248. Lydia Pettit - A Persistent Gaze

2026
Oil on wood panel
20 x 20 cm

Lydia Pettit (b. 1991) is an artist from Baltimore, USA, living and working in London. Pettit’s work explores the experience of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the politics of the body, using self-portraiture as a means of processing and communication. Across painting, sculpture, performance, and film, she examines the body as both host to trauma and battleground — caught between recovery and regression, tenderness and violence, desire and fear.

Drawing on the visual language of horror cinema, Pettit uses recurring characters and personas as avatars for different psychological states: anger appears as a slasher figure, fear as the vulnerable victim, and desire as a feral, unruly presence. These theatrical and often darkly comic works confront viewers with the realities of trauma, mental illness, sexual violence, and bodily autonomy, while questioning wider cultural attitudes towards women’s experiences of abuse and survival.

Pettit completed a BFA in Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (2010–2014), before undertaking an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (2018–2020).

Recent exhibitions include E.M.D.R. at Galerie Judin, Berlin (2025); Bitches in Heat at Guts Gallery, London (2024); Prophetic Dreams at Kutlesa Gallery, Goldau (2024); The Arcadian Dream at Spurs Gallery, Beijing (2024); Sirani at Galerie Judin, Berlin (2023); LOOKING LIKE FIRE at Sim Smith, London (2023); I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER at Dinner Gallery, New York (2023); In Your Anger, I See Fear at Galerie Judin, Berlin (2023); GIALLO! at Trafalgar Avenue, London (2022); and Introductions: Lydia Pettit at White Cube, London (2022).