Lily Walker

These paintings explore food, intimacy and care through the setting of the dinner party. They focus on the social aspect of food; its ability to bring people together.

The paintings derive from candid photographs taken at dinner parties I host for friends. Photographic elements are exaggerated through the careful process of painting.

Painting these fleeting, informal scenes preserves both the
social closeness and sincerity and the temporary state of the food, which would otherwise be consumed or decay.

The slow process of making my paintings is a means of digesting memories and valuing transitory social moments. They capture personal, intimate and intangible experiences and the strange awkwardness of eating in the company of others. I seek to invite viewers into the convivial and odd space of the dinner party; preserved within and between the layers of paint.