Thaïs Lenkiewicz

Three Worms Flying uses photographs I took of the sky outside my window and a worm from my garden. There is a longstanding fascination with clouds and the sky in my work, which has been explored the subject of the history of the sky in painting, and the shapes of the sky in the city as defined by buildings. I am interested in how clouds and sky have shaped the human experience now and in prehistory. Worms, for reasons both symbolic and visual, are a regular motif in my paintings. They are here with a perhaps sci-fi interjection on a sky scene.

Gemstones have also been a motif, usually appearing with worms, but last year following a change in my circumstances which left me homeless and a single mother I started photographing foodbank meals and incorporating gemstones into those images. With 'Blue Foodbank Meal ...' I was curious to play with the shimmering effects from the wet food which echoed that of the wet worm bodies I'd been painting. Contrasts of the appealing vs repulsive, softness and hardness, and vulnerability vs permanence are of interest.