This presentation is composed by pairing two series of untitled works from 1970 and 1979, made by Otter in two specific moments of her life. A group of small enamel paintings on linen, bigger than a pocket-book and smaller than the cover of a magazine. The group of pieces recall older works, commonly named paintings for furniture since they were exhibited for the first time over cupboards, bookshelves, crates and chairs from a furniture shop. This newer group of pieces are presented in a particular fashion, quietly hanging over a textile recycled moving blanket. The works in question belong to a series of visual experiments, an attempt to make a record cover for Duchamp Widows, a post-punk band from Manchester, very close to the artist’s teenage group of friends. The works are abstract paintings with a peculiar hue of color, some may resemble marble grain, others sound waves or picks from a diagram.
The second set of works are placed on a pedestal, objects fabricated with painted thick lead foil to resemble a can, with a paper label that reads ironically Otter Wax. This group of objects were exhibited for the first time in 1970 in the storefront windows of Gill & Co. Ironmongers in Oxford, to coincide with the October rainy season. Otter plays with her name as if it was a product and at the same time a substance to transmute the properties of the matter. Otter’s work is often influenced by the obstacles of her surroundings, like the weather as a complex phenomenon, and by the impossibility to represent feelings and emotions and the communication between humans and the natural world.
Lucy Otter created artworks during the 1960s and late 1980s that were exhibited in unconventional forms. Her abstract paintings, films and objects, devoid of any apparent meaning, have been installed or have been hanging in public and private spaces - a laundromat and a corn-field, among others - not typically akin to galleries or Museums. Her work is conceptual and points to the context as singular information to decode the world.