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Sylvia Radford

@sylvia.radford

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@turpsbanana Correspondence Course 25/26
@jackson's Art Prize shortlist 23
@thecbpp longlist 23
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Old family photos catch moments that time would hide. But what is real? I'm looking at the past, fragmented memories, and how yesterday haunts today.
My Key Themes are:
• Family Archive: Capturing fleeting moments from old photographs.
• Fragmented Memory: Exploring how we remember and forget.
• Identity & Time: Looking at who we were versus who we are now.
• Hauntology: How the past lives on in the present.

Image 1: Family Portrait #1, 2025 Oil on linen, 76x60cm
Image 2: Family Portrait #2, 2026 Oil on cradled gesso panel, 16x31cm
Image 3: Family Portrait #3, 2026, Oil on canvas, 25x36cm
Image 4: Untitled, 2025, Oil on canvas, 92x76cm

#contemporaryart #painting #oilpainting #emergingartist #chichester #contemporarypainting #artistsoninstagram #artwork #originalartwork #kunst #art #artoftheday #artofinstagram #artinspiration #familypainting #contemporarypainter #hauntology by @sylvia.radford

Continuing my ballet series inspired by Poussin’s A Dance to the Music of Time (c. 1634–6), I donated this small piece in 2025, Dance to the Music of Time (2025), to my former art college, West Dean College.

Nestled in the beautiful West Sussex countryside between Chichester and Midhurst, West Dean College hosts its annual POSTAL fundraising sale every May. Proceeds directly support the fine art students’ final year exhibition, held both at the college and in London.

This specific work was influenced by Cambridge artist and poet John Lyons. His 2024 exhibition Carnivalesque at the Whitworth featured utterly superb, incredible paintings that deeply resonated with me.

The second piece is a study for a larger work titled In Our Chains. It references Dylan Thomas’ poem "Fern Hill" which, like Nicolas Poussin’s painting A Dance to the Music of Time, explores life’s fleeting moments and shifting fortunes.

Image 1: Dance to the Music of Time, 2025, oil on board, 35x25cm
Image 2: In Our Chains, 2025, Oil on linen, 60x76cm

#contemporaryart #painting #oilpainting #emergingartist #chichester #contemporarypainting #artistsoninstagram #artwork #originalartwork #kunst #art #artoftheday #artofinstagram #artinspiration #ballet #dance #childhood by @sylvia.radford

My Ballet series is inspired by Nicolas Poussin’s A Dance to the Music of Time (c. 1634–6), exploring ideas around identity, agency, and performativity. Looking back at my studio documentation, it's fascinating to see how the work evolved. I always had a clear vision for the characters and knew I wanted to use masking tape to fragment the space, but the background took time to figure out. The final concept, a flattened, abstract theatrical backdrop, only clicked late in the game after a few different sketched trials.

Image 1: Dance to Whose Music? (Diptych), 2025, Oil on canvas, 92x152cm
Images 2-5: Work in Progress on the work
Image 6: Nicolas Poussin, A Dance to the Music of Time, (c1634-6)

#contemporaryart #painting #contemporarypainting #artistsoninstagram #artforsale #artwork #kunst #art #artoftheday #artofinstagram #artinspiration #ballet by @sylvia.radford

We are delighted to introduce SYLVIA RADFORD, who is participating in our group exhibition UNPEELED, 10–13 September 2026 Downstairs at The Department Store, 248 Ferndale Road, Brixton SW9 8FR.

@sylvia.radford is a British Singaporean painter based in Chichester, UK. Born in Thailand and raised in Southeast Asia, her transnational background fuels her research into how fluid, multicultural identities are constructed and mythologized. Her contemporary art practice uses painting to transform personal history and fragmented memory into universal, transnational narratives. By interpreting a personal archive of family photographs, Sylvia engages with themes of hauntology, the layering of time where the past and present exist in an ongoing dialogue. The inherent unsettledness of her painting materials helps articulate a complex, ever-evolving sense of identity, home and belonging.

Title of works :
1. Dance to The Music of Time (Diptych)
2. Another Place

#painterpainter #unpeeledgroupshow #LondonArtScene #contemporarypainting #turpscc2526

@_painterpainter_is an international group of contemporary painters brought together thorough the Turps Correspondence Course 2025/26

Alice Buckee |Alys Scott-Hawkins | Andrea Stanley | Anna Webber | Annette Treacy | Aprille McShane | Asiya Clarke | Beate Köhne | Beverley Dale | Camilla Candia | Caroline Lovett | Catherine Levey | Chloë Herring | Constance Albanel de Nicolay | Elin Karlsson | Ella Johnston | Enda O’Donoghue | Fionnuala Lanigan | Frances O’Reilly | Giselle Martinez Cuadros | Hagar Basis | Hamideh Abol | Jane C Fox | Jen Metcalfe | Joanna Lynch | Joy Martindale| Kirsi Reinikka | Laura Murray | Laurence Scates | Michael Jarvis | Nicola Siebert-Patel | Patsy McArthur | Philip O’Dwyer | Rachel Mortlock | Raquel Leis | Rebecca Odessa | Roberta Bonfield | Rohini Kapil | Saba Morshed | Sharon Wyper | Shivani Khoshia | Sophie Epton Mock | Sue Baker Kenton | Suki Berwick | Sylvia Radford | Thaïs Leniewicz | Theadora Ballantyne-Way | Una D’Aragona by @sylvia.radford

In Malay folklore shared across Singapore, banyan trees are considered liminal boundaries where human reality overlaps with the unseen spiritual world. I grew up with these stories and films on TV in Malaysia and one in the kindergarten/ play group school grounds in KL.

Class Photo focuses on a cropped in view of the group, their forming identities and tensions.

1-3: Banyan Tree, 2026, oil on linen, 122x90cm
4&5: Class Photo, 2026, oil on linen, 60x76cm

#contemporaryart #painting #contemporarypainting #artistsoninstagram #artforsale #artwork #kunst #art #artoftheday #artofinstagram #banyantree #Malaysia by @sylvia.radford

Revisiting the past through paint. My latest series explores formal group portraits and my own late late 1960s/70s kindergarten class from Kuala Lumpur. It’s about memory, ghost-like traces of history, and painting.
Behind the Canvas
• The Concept: Reconfiguring childhood memories and understanding the present through a personal lens.
• #1 Class Photo: Focusing on identity, interaction, and the real-life tensions between kids.
• #2 Class Photo: Leaning into "hauntology"—with figures half-erased like ghosts from the past.
• The Influences: Inspired by early Alex Katz group works, Cindy Sherman’s childhood photos, and Christopher Le Brun’s abstracts.

1: #1 Class Photo No1, 2026, Oil on canvas, 76x91cm
2: #2 Class Photo No2, 2026, Oil on linen, 91x122cm
3-5: details of the works
6: art historical influences

#contemporaryart #painting #contemporarypainting #artistsoninstagram #artforsale #artwork #kunst #art #artoftheday #artofinstagram #artinspiration by @sylvia.radford

The last work in June... late last night in the studio.. I declared these two pieces were finally done.

LHS: Wasps' Nest, 2026, Oil on linen, 102x76cm
RHS: Time After Time, 2026, Oil on linen, 102x76cm

#oilpainting #emergingartists #contemporarypainting #originalartwork #painter by @sylvia.radford

Studio shots - It's been a while....I've been working on some new projects and they're almost finally ready to post....

Studio shots over the last few months
1: Family group series showing LHS -Untitled, Oil on canvas, 80x80cm; RHS - Wasps' Nest, Oil on Linen, 102x76cm; Bottom - Night and Day (part of Diptych)
2 and 3: Work in Progress - Night and Day (Diptych), oil on canvas, 76x60cm each panel;
4: Class Photo Series (various)
5: Class Photo, Oil on canvas, 60x76cm

#oilpainting #contemporaryart by @sylvia.radford

Delighted to have my painting The Bridge Between selected for the WOMEN IN ART FAIR 19-21 JUNE 2025 at gallery @oxotowerwharf - an amazing gallery space within Oxo Tower. SAVE THE DATE!!

'WIAF's mission is to create a positive global platform from which women artists, curators and gallerists are given an opportunity to show their work, and contribute to the developing exchange of ideas around gender, sexuality and culture.' https://womeninartfair.com @womeninartfairofficial

The Bridge Between, 2024
Oil on canvas, 76x91cm

#womeninart #womeninartfair #femaleartists #emergingartists #contemporaryart #oiloncanvas #oilpainting #artexhibitions #kunst #turps2425 #contemporaryartcollectors #womeninartfairofficial #contemporarypaintings #contemporaryfineart #artexhibitionlondon by @sylvia.radford

Thank you to whoever bought my small piece Faded Glory in the West Dean annual online fundraising exhibition POSTAL!

As an alumna (MFA 2024) of @westdeancollege I am pleased to give a shout out to this fundraiser organised by @westdeanfineart.
Works are for sale online between 23 May and 3 June 2025 (midday) only, at the following link:

https://www.westdeanfineart.show/postal

All works are by current students, alumni and associated guests. All works are approximately A4 size and are priced in bands of £30, £50, £80 and £100. They will be posted to buyers after the exhibition has closed. Funds raised will go toward supporting the summer exhibitions at West Dean and in London for students on the BA Art and Contemporary Craft, Graduate Diploma Fine Art, and MFA (Master of Fine Art). More information at: https://www.westdean.ac.uk/events/postal-2025

Pieces shown:
Faded Glory, 2025, oil on canvas, 30x25cm, SOLD
Dance to the Music of Time, 2025, oil on board, 35x25cm, FOR SALE

#art, #oilpainting #chichester #chichesterartist #westdeancollege #emergingartist #artwork #painting #kunst #westdeanfineart #artexhibitions #artforsaleonline by @sylvia.radford

Dance to the Music of Time - A series of emerging new work influenced by Poussin's A Dance to the Music of Time and Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill, which allude to life's brevity.

I draw on family photographs and personal objects in developing my compositions and reference art history.

1. In Our Chains, 2025, oil on canvas, 76x102cm
2. Dance to the Music of Time (diptych), oil on canvas, 91x76cm each panel

An illustration of my process i) of how ideas may germinate ii) blocking in the composition (there are a few steps before I get here!!! but mainly I try and work things out on canvas)

#art #painting #oiloncanvas #ballet #emergingartist #contemporarypainter #contemporaryart #turps2425 #oilpainting #contemporaryartist #kunst #artworks #dance by @sylvia.radford

I have the pleasure to introduce my joint virtual exhibition through @kunstmatrix with @marcrenshawuk as part of a program PG-4 run by @contemporaryartacademy to receive feedback and direction from gallerists, curators and collectors and develop a virtual exhibition -
link: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/node/14029866

Catalogue: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/14029866/catalog

Both Marc and I deal with liminal slippages. In my work, I want to express something about being caught between different realities through the idea of liminal spaces - that slippage that is between one space and another - to comment on difference, on trying to find a sense of belonging.

A few days ago, I was asked, "What do you do?" and I replied, "I'm a painter." When asked what I paint, I explained that I focus on the theme of difference, not just because of my multiple cultural backgrounds but because I believe it is a universal experience. Many people can relate to feeling different.

Painting about differences, whether cultural, social, or personal, allows me to express my unique perspective and connect with others.

And in being different, one is often labelled typed, pigeonholed, and in this process fragmented, seen differently. Labelling is erasing identity as well, and in my work I question to what extent are we created or constructed and how do we resist the social dynamics of judgement.

Have you ever felt different? I'd love to read your views!

@contemporaryartacademy: Delivering acclaimed online art courses for affordable prices, Contemporary Art Academy is providing premium art education to artists globally.

Many thanks and with grateful appreciation to the CAA team including @kirstyogg @chapelhouseharrogate96 @galerieheikestrelow @division_of_labour @maxpresneill @matthew.collings_

#art #artexhibition #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting #emergingartist #oilpainting #kunst #difference #otherness #identity #artist #artistsoninstagram #kunstmatrix #contemporaryartacademy #turps2425 by @sylvia.radford