Poppy Critchlow

Poppy is a London-based artist whose primary mediums are oil paints and drawing. Her work encompasses extensive examinations into memory, adolescence, and identity with an emphasis on the progressive aspect of moving away from the past and focusing on looking towards the present and future.

Poppy Critchlow, The Street Before Mine, 2023. Photo Courtesy: Poppy Critchlow.

 Poppy graduated from the University of Leeds in 2023, with a degree in Fine Art with History of Art and is now focusing on becoming an artist full-time, whilst also working alongside artists collectives. One of these is The Bomb Factory which takes over abandoned buildings across London, creating new spaces for creative individuals to express their ideas and giving them a base for their work.

 Poppy has drawn inspiration from artists she thinks are "weighty" and "firmly grounded," and she has attempted to emulate these impressions in her work. Paula Rego, Igor Moritz, and Vanessa Raw are among the artists she discovered to inspire her to create her works. Vanessa Raw was particularly influential after Tracey Emin’s nominations for the Frieze art fair in 2023. Their work included ideas of freedom inside brushwork, which have the power to offer the previously mentioned sense of weightiness and create the zeal of individualisation within their subjects.

Poppy’s series of three pencil drawings, The Street Before Mine (2023), is primarily an exercise of experimenting with compositions but has evolved into accepting the importance of light, letting it dictate the space. All three of the pencil drawings came from memories of specific times of intimacy as well as of vulnerability between groups of three people. These interactions continue to follow Poppy’s fascination with identity and the liminality within her pieces. There is no sense in dating the drawings, separating our views on past, present or future becoming works of interpretation.

Poppy Critchlow, Sunday Blues, 2023. Photo Courtesy: Poppy Critchlow.

 Sunday Blues originated as a depiction of her experience at Leeds University. While she was addressing a current topic, memories were still being drawn forward and following her within the patterns on the bed. These patterns in the cushions and other materials accompanied her throughout her childhood home and have been ingrained in her student residence. These opposing parts of recollections of being a child and growing to become oneself as a student throughout adolescence are indications of her acceptance away from these memories and contrasted to her life as a 20-year-old. The figure in the painting depicts her girlfriend sitting in their bed as they spend their “hungover Sunday rotting in bed.” The view outside of the window is a reminder to both that the world continues outside and that the student bubble will eventually burst. This contemplative piece began her search for meaning in life after university and what this would mean for the future of her professional advancement.

Poppy Critchlow, Getting Late, 2023. Photo Courtesy: Poppy Critchlow.

During her time in Leeds, she became drawn to and obsessed with the use of Lemon Yellow and Cobalt Blue as seen in her piece, Sunday Blues and now in Getting Late. Poppy’s experimentation with these colours begins with a process of layering one after the other to eventually create this halo effect like the artist previously mentioned, Vanessa Raw. Poppy never starts with a pre-mixed colour, but instead builds them up slowly through this layering effect. As a result, these beautifully vibrant colours appear onto the canvas forming from the background, creating effects of night light and this glowing yellow. Getting Late was Poppy’s final work and pays homage to these two colours that were so fundamental to her art practice throughout that year. Her new work is reevaluating the emphasis on nightlife that is associated with her colour palette and her life as a student. Poppy mentioned that she only realised this upon reflecting on her work produced at Leeds and comparing that to her present work.

 Since leaving university and returning back home to London, she can see that perhaps her work was limited to ideas of the past, leading her to address the future more. Leaving these past adolescent memories behind, Poppy has started to produce work with a warmer colour pallet instead of the vibrant blues and yellows. Her work has transformed and is much more focused on identity and domesticity. Due to the limitations of space and the reality of moving out of a student studio space, her scale of work has reduced significantly and changed dramatically in colour and subject matter. However, whilst looking towards the future, her aspirations of scaling up again are hopefully going to be achieved when she gains a studio vacancy as a young artist.

To learn more about Poppy Critchlow, please visit her Instagram.

Ina Benigni

Emerging Artist Co-Editor, MADE IN BED