Katyuli Lloyd (MO 1998-03) to return as Artist-in-Residence
“…Katyuli Lloyd’s work had hints of Matisse and [is] beautifully executed…”
Rafi Romaya, Art Director at Canongate Books
Katyuli Lloyd (MO 1998-03) is returning to the College as Artist-in-Residence from September.
Here, Edward Twohig, Head of Art, elucidates as to why Katyuli’s creativity is enduring and why it will add a compelling chapter to the role of Artist-in-Residence, working alongside pupils and staff in the Art School. This Artist residency is three decades strong at College.
“Katyuli is an artist, published illustrator and designer. She is available for portraits, book illustrations and other design commissions.
Of Russian and French heritage on her mother’s side, and English on her father’s, Katyuli was educated at home and spent a lot of time as a child on the Greek island of Hydra, where the family still divide their time. She went to Marlborough College, Wiltshire, and then Clare College, Cambridge, where she read Russian and Modern Greek (2004-8). From 2014-2016, she completed an MA in Children’s Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art.
Katyuli’s illustrations for Virginia Woolf’s novel Flush, 1933, were short-listed for both the V&A Illustration Awards 2016 as well as the World Illustration Awards 2016.
In May 2017, Katyuli produced new book cover designs and internal illustrations for The Folio Society’s editions of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966).”
The above is from Katyuli’s website. These biographical details and accolades are helpful but, I believe, are less than half the story as this affable artist’s strength is her desire to create, the versatility of her subject matter underpinned by observation and drawing and, most vital of all, the spark that infuses her repertoire. The latter is her visual signature. Nothing appears laboured. To arrive at what the great French artist, Edgar Degas’s termed, ‘the Art of concealing Art’ or ‘gift of suggestion’ is not only impressive, it is actually the hardest to achieve within visual creativity. In the hands of Katyuli, compositions are not overdone. How does Katyuli create suites of compelling and unsentimental portraits, interiors, landscapes, townscapes and still life’s that possess this?
The most obvious is Katyuli draws frequently and often. One must, if one is to attain such pitch across her work. This is fortified by respect for and love of culture and heritage: wide culture and wide heritage, particularly Hellenistic. Interior and exterior scenes of the island of Hydra in Greece, London and Cambridge and their inhabitancies’ appear. Katyuli delights in the world around her, reflected in fluent visual compositions which is the ignition for the spark, Katyuli’s visual signature, I mention earlier. And then, there is this artist’s compelling choice of colour. Rarer again: colour and line go hand in hand.
On reading this article, Review: Katyuli Lloyd by Nicole Egorova (EL 2015-2020) one gets a valuable insight into Katyuli’s creativity. This is echoed in On the Shelves – Flush Illustrated by Katyuli Lloyd.
I urge the reader to dip into Katyuli’s Art-land and see for yourself within her very excellent website.
Katyuli is eminently practical as well as creative. You will see her website features a shop where one can easily purchase her Hydra inspired Beach Tote bags and, following their positive reception (Katyuli sold half the stock in one week) wash-bags too in addition to Katyuli’s prints and artwork. Please take note loud and clear: my one criticism would be that the prices are far too reasonable.
Roll on September! If you are back in the Marlborough area please do get in touch and arrange a visit to the Art School and Mount House Galley exhibitions (Covid permitting). Katyuli will be having a solo Show in the Mount House in June 2021.
Before ending, I wish to say your bookshelf is not complete without a volume of Flush illustrated by Katyuli. Rafi Romaya’s statement at the beginning of this article is spot on.
Edward Twohig RE
Head of Art, Marlborough College; Fellow, Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers; Trustee, Bankside Gallery, London; Hon. Member, State Academy of Fine Arts of Azerbaijan, Baku.
