Igniting Penguins

British-born artist Rachel Lumsden paints primarily large-format figurative paintings that are characterised by intensely atmospheric pictorial spaces. Her imagery coalesces on the canvas through a virtuoso handling of paint, evoking visual narratives which come unexpectedly close and yet cannot be entirely grasped.

In her book Igniting Penguins: On Painting Now, Lumsden invites the reader on an entertaining excursion into the art world and to the core of painting itself. Along the way we are introduced to some of art’s powerful and quirky gatekeepers, are baffled by art’s gender roles, and we discover what makes figurative painting the sexy form of quantum physics. Lumsden’s essay is both a pamphlet and a brief autobiography. And, above all, it is a blazing declaration of love for painting.