‘A female body in luminous off-white–asleep? daydreaming? buried?–has her eyes closed. Where on Earth are we? Is this a scene of death, a rumination on the ways that the cyclical forces of nature reconvene as we perish? Or a painting that asks us to think about the passing of seasons, even or especially as extreme climate conditions disrupt its rhythm? In either case, life and death are held at once.’ Matthew Holman

Diane Chappalley (b. 1991, Switzerland, lives and works in London) uses a highly symbolic and poetic language to create a circle of inner death, rebirth and resilience. She embraces the ability of oil painting and ceramic to record human gestures through touch. The work becomes a vehicle of intimacy; taking us through psychological landscapes.

Her recent paintings explore how bodily gestures can encompass multiple readings: abandonment, fear, care, protection and strength. Surrounded by flowers in their state of becoming, it is a proposition of what once was, what is, and what can become. And we are drawn in the fine line between love and fear, dreams and nightmares, life and death.