Laura Footes

A Healing Dream – Curated by Tracey Emin DBE RA

A Healing Dream is the current solo exhibition by British artist Laura Footes, curated by Tracey Emin DBE RA.

Footes’ new paintings for ‘A Healing Dream’ are set in the familiar spaces of the home, the place where a sick person ends up spending most of their time whilst in a kind of purgatory waiting to recover. Isolated, the convalescent is forced to draw on memories and imagination, and it is these two mental imaging processes which play a central role in how Footes’ work is formed. In her dream-like paintings, a cast of ghost-like forms are rendered through an elastic timeframe, occupying almost hallucinatory space yet tethered to a representational reality.

Footes describes her process as pulling apart the facades of architecture and flesh, looking to capture things the eye can’t see and that are also beyond the limitations of technology. Influenced by the innumerable NHS x-rays and scanners used on her own body, she likes to ‘zoom out’ and create psycho- geographic mind maps of remembered spaces and neighbourhoods, and then ‘zoom in’ – seeing through walls, exploring interiors and peering through the spectre of the permeable, transient body into the cosmos of its cell. All of this is filtered through an agglomeration of art historical references, the aesthetics of cinematography, French poetry and world literature – elements that the artist became acquainted with during her long periods of recuperation.

Living with an aggressive autoimmune disease since childhood has precipitated in Footes a desire to explore ideas of disease and healing, and how they manifest in the psychological, architectural and bodily realms. With everything laid bare for her audience – the uncomfortable moments, the daily rituals, and even our internal systems, both anatomical and psychological – Footes has spoken of her hope to share the beauty of dysfunction. “We are all islands inside our bodies – nobody can ever know what it is like to be us, but there is so much beauty and relatability in our different experiences and perspectives. This body of work aims to share the shadows and magic of one person’s strange interior world, with the hope that others will see something of themselves in it too and feel less alone.”

Laura Footes was one of the first artists to be offered a professional studio at Tracey Emin’s TKE studios in Margate when they opened in 2022. Drawn to both her work and her life story, Emin has remained a mentor and close supporter. “Laura’s work takes me into another world”, states Emin, “A ghost like space. The unreal meeting the real, the dead meeting the living. Through my mental states and the effects of my cancer I have stepped in and out of those worlds. Laura is a true genius in presenting this twilight zone of straddling these worlds”.

 

About The Curator

Dame Tracey Emin DBE RA (b. 1963, London) lives and works in between London, Margate and the South of France. In 2007, Emin represented Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale. In 2011, she became the Royal Academy’s Professor of Drawing, and in 2012, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for her contributions to the visual arts. In 2022, Emin was awarded with the title of Honorary Freewoman of Margate in recognition of her work and her investment into the culture of the town. In 2023, Emin opened TKE Studios in Margate which offers artist studios and a residency programme. In that same year, Emin was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to create The Doors (2023), resulting in 45 female portraits cast in bronze that cover the gallery’s three new entrance doors. In 2024, Tracey Emin was honoured with a damehood in the King’s Birthday Honours for her services to British art.

Preview

16th November, 5-8pm

Dates

17th November 2023 – 16th February 2025

Installation Views​
Laura Footes, 'A Healing Dream', Installation View, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2024
Laura Footes, 'A Healing Dream', Installation View, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2024
Laura Footes, 'A Healing Dream', Installation View, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2024
Laura Footes, 'A Healing Dream', Installation View, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2024
Laura Footes, 'A Healing Dream', Installation View, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2024
Laura Footes, 'A Healing Dream', Installation View, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2024
Laura Footes, 'A Healing Dream', Installation View, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, 2024
Selected Works
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Laura Footes

Echoes of a Sunday (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

Echoes of a Sunday (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

Enquire
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Laura Footes

But There Were Others (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

But There Were Others (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

Enquire
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Laura Footes

Meeting (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Meeting (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Enquire
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Laura Footes

Memory Of Your Touch (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Memory Of Your Touch (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Enquire
<h1 class='my-heading'>Just some HTML</h1><?php echo 'The year is ' . date('Y'); ?>
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Laura Footes

The Apartment (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

The Apartment (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

Enquire
<h1 class='my-heading'>Just some HTML</h1><?php echo 'The year is ' . date('Y'); ?>
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        }
    }, { passive: false });
});

Laura Footes

Barbeque (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

Barbeque (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

Enquire
<h1 class='my-heading'>Just some HTML</h1><?php echo 'The year is ' . date('Y'); ?>
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    #brxe-anyewf {
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document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function() {
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            event.preventDefault(); // Prevents long-press with multiple fingers
        }
    }, { passive: false });
});

Laura Footes

Bed In The Woods (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Bed In The Woods (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Enquire

Laura Footes

Echoes of a Sunday (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

Echoes of a Sunday (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

Enquire

Laura Footes

But There Were Others (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

But There Were Others (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 200 cm (67 x 78.5 in)

Enquire

Laura Footes

Meeting (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Meeting (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Enquire

Laura Footes

Memory Of Your Touch (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Memory Of Your Touch (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Enquire

Laura Footes

The Apartment (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

The Apartment (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

Enquire

Laura Footes

Barbeque (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

Barbeque (2024)

Oil on canvas
170 x 300 cm (67 x 118 in)

Enquire

Laura Footes

Bed In The Woods (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Bed In The Woods (2024)

Oil on board
30 x 30 cm (12 x 12 in)

Enquire
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About

Laura Footes (Born 1988, Birmingham, UK. Lives and works in Margate, UK). Footes was one of the first artists to be offered a professional studio at Tracey Emin’s TKE studios in Margate when they opened in 2022.

Solo Exhibitions: A Healing Dream, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, UK (Forthcoming, 2024), Somewhere Else, SHRINE, New York, US (2023), The Master, Margarita and the Artist, Pushkin House, London, UK (2018).

Selected Group Exhibitions: REALMS, Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, UK (2024), We Do Not Sleep, TKE, Margate, UK (2024), Summer Exhibition, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK (2022), Between Worlds, Glyndebourne Opera House, Lewes, UK (2019), Royal Academy Summer Show, Royal Academy, London, UK (2019), Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Mall Galleries, London, UK (2019), The Royal Drawing School Selected Alumni Exhibition, Buckingham Palace, London, UK (2017), Best of the Drawing Year, Christie’s, New York, US (2016), Society of Fine Artists, Menier Gallery, London, UK (2015), Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Mall Galleries, London, UK (2014), Best of the Drawing Year, Christie’s, London, UK (2013), Artist of the Day, Flowers Gallery, London, UK (2013).

Find Out More​