A painter of trees and woodlands, Lulu Galaway remains very much a Montrealer. Her art practice stretches back to childhood, when she got her start at F.A.C.E, the downtown fine-arts specialist school. Later, she gained a BFA at Emily Carr University in BC, focusing on painting and ceramics. She spent time in London and New Zealand, working in creative industries, including a stint as a graphic designer for the art department of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. She is trained in graphic design and printmaking, with a second BFA from Concordia University. Having worked in the publishing industry and making work in a variety of media, at heart, Lulu has always been a painter. Her studio is a deliciously green and peaceful place, revealing Lulu’s love of nature, forests, and the darker side of imagined fairy tale landscapes, where a walker might lose their bearings in the leaves, vines, and branches. There is something old-fashioned about Lulu’s love of landscape paintings. But don’t be fooled; these are not cosy images, and even if they are beautiful, you wouldn’t accuse them of being pretty.
-Written by Dr. Rachel Rich, Reader in Modern European History at Leeds Beckett University
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Which ’hood are you in?
Outremont / Mile End. When I’m living in Montreal, I have a rule, always to be within walking distance of the Mountain. Access to the forest and being able to walk anywhere else I need to get to on a daily, is paramount. I love where we are, between all the lush green of Outremont and all the yummy food and chill places to hang out in the Mile End.
What do you do?
I am a landscape painter working in oils. I am primarily a studio painter; although photography, plein air painting and sketches provide fodder for the work. The passage through wilderness is a recurrent theme in fairy tales through which I filter my own relationship to landscape. It is a depiction of a journey, both interior and exterior. The figure is never present in the landscape as I want the viewer to be the protagonist, to make the journey their own. Beyond my studio practice, I am a Graphic Designer specializing in Editorial Design. I bounce between design contracts and painting.
What are you currently working on?
I’m making new paintings that are more ambitious in scale, I want them to feel immersive. In terms of narrative, I’m thinking of how one moves from tangled darkness to the light and the threshold between the two states.
Where can we find your work?
Website | Instagram | Artists in Montreal | Partial Gallery
