Lily Timberlake

Lily Timberlake is a painter based in Austin, Texas, currently working on a series of oil paintings that lean into the joyful, tender, and transient moments that sustain a life. Drawing from her immediate environment, her work seeks to capture the fleeting nature of experience and encourages the viewer to slow down. Her paintings are often built up in washes of both thick and thin paint, leaving certain areas open and gestural, while rendering others more defined and dense. After receiving a BFA in painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2018, she relocated her practice to Austin, where she lives with her cattle dog, Rio, who often appears in her paintings. Her work has been shown at Cloudtree Gallery, the Dodge Painting Gallery, and has been featured in I Like Your Work’s Winter 2024 Exhibition Catalogue.


Artist Statement

My paintings explore themes of the passing of time, the mystical, and examine my personal relationship to the landscape. My work is rooted in observation, and through the careful study of my subject, I work intuitively within the parameters set up by my reference, be it a photograph, still life, or live model. I am interested to see where the painting takes me, rather than executing a specific vision.

I start by drawing on the canvas with paint and build up the entire surface simultaneously. By maintaining a sense of gesture through varying applications of paint, I aim to keep the human hand present throughout the work, preserve the spirit of the original drawing, and leave space for the viewer to fill in the blank. Additionally, through the layering of patterns, textiles, and objects, I aim to create a sense of depth and a push-pull between the world or space being depicted and the surface of the painting.

My paintings reference fleeting moments taken directly from my life—like passing by a neighbor’s thoughtfully kept garden on my daily walk, going out dancing, or setting up a still life of coveted possessions. Translating these moments into paint is a way of preserving and remembering; an attempt to slow down time and be present. I hope to elicit a sense of enchantment, a moment of pause, and to create a dialogue between the way things were and how we wish to remember.


https://www.lilytimberlakestudio.com/