Celia Lees is an artist whose practice explores lived experience, memory, and the passage of time through large-scale, expressive painting. Her work channels emotional states and human connection into intuitive compositions, shaped by a strong sensitivity to materiality, texture, and colour, an awareness informed in part by her background in fashion. Rooted in the physical act of mark-making, her paintings reflect an ongoing dialogue between instinct, movement, and embodied experience.
Loosen Your Grip centres on the tension between control and release. Emerging from an impulse to fix and hold things together, the works trace a shift toward recognising the limits of control. Dense, compressed gestures sit alongside more open, minimal areas, creating a rhythm between restraint and letting go. The paintings do not resolve this tension; instead, they remain within it, embracing ambiguity and the discomfort of stepping back. Through this body of work, Lees invites viewers to consider what emerges when control is loosened, and whether there is a quiet strength in allowing things to unfold on their own.