Lisa Milroy
A Day in the Studio, 2000
acrylic on canvas
173 x 216 cm
I think of A Day in the Studio, 2000 as a self-portrait. I’m portrayed through mapping a typical day shaped by painting from start to finish within the studio that...
I think of A Day in the Studio, 2000 as a self-portrait. I’m portrayed through mapping a
typical day shaped by painting from start to finish within the studio that I occupied from
1993 to 2001 in Shoreditch, East London. Through the painting, I was investigating how still life, the genre in which my practice sits, could address certain questions that remain of continuing importance to me – how to embody the passing of time in painting, and how I might portray the experience of painting itself and my role as an artist through the
depictions of everyday objects. The ‘objects’ in this painting are sheets of paper - laid out in a grid, one of my favourite compositional formats - on which key scenes of my daily studio life unfold through a series of sketches, like an animation film.
I later used the motif of the ‘studio as self-portrait’ in two monumental 22-metre long
paintings, Black and White, 2005 and Katharine’s Wheel, 2020 to further explore my identity and role as a painter alongside a juxtaposition of the performative aspects of making paintings and the contemplative nature of looking at paintings, all within a still life context. I rented the studio depicted in A Day in the Studio from the arts organisation Space Studios. Subsequently to my tenancy the building became the site of a notable restaurant. The footprint of the restaurant still follows that of my old studio and whenever I dine there, I channel body memories of what it was like to make my paintings for nearly a decade in that space. It makes me happy to think of people savouring good food and good conversation in my former workplace.
Lisa Milroy
London, July 2025
typical day shaped by painting from start to finish within the studio that I occupied from
1993 to 2001 in Shoreditch, East London. Through the painting, I was investigating how still life, the genre in which my practice sits, could address certain questions that remain of continuing importance to me – how to embody the passing of time in painting, and how I might portray the experience of painting itself and my role as an artist through the
depictions of everyday objects. The ‘objects’ in this painting are sheets of paper - laid out in a grid, one of my favourite compositional formats - on which key scenes of my daily studio life unfold through a series of sketches, like an animation film.
I later used the motif of the ‘studio as self-portrait’ in two monumental 22-metre long
paintings, Black and White, 2005 and Katharine’s Wheel, 2020 to further explore my identity and role as a painter alongside a juxtaposition of the performative aspects of making paintings and the contemplative nature of looking at paintings, all within a still life context. I rented the studio depicted in A Day in the Studio from the arts organisation Space Studios. Subsequently to my tenancy the building became the site of a notable restaurant. The footprint of the restaurant still follows that of my old studio and whenever I dine there, I channel body memories of what it was like to make my paintings for nearly a decade in that space. It makes me happy to think of people savouring good food and good conversation in my former workplace.
Lisa Milroy
London, July 2025