IL DOLCE FAR NIENTE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUCY LAUCHT & PAINTINGS BY CAROLINE POPHAM

Celebrating the spirit of summer, hand-signed prints by photographer Lucy Laucht, taken from her new book Il Dolce Far Niente , and a collection of original works on paper by artist Caroline Popham, at 8 Holland Street Bath Gallery.

LUCY LAUCHT

With an old film camera in hand, Lucy travelled through Italy’s southern rivieras, from the Amalfi Coast to the volcanic Aeolian archipelago, capturing the slow pace of Italian summer: lively Neopolitan beach scenes and bathers lazing on rocks. These scenes are collected in her new book and a limited edition print collection, a meditation on the elegant Italian expression Il Dolce Far Niente , which translates as “the sweetness of doing nothing”, or “sweet idleness”. The result is a transportive photographic study of southern Italy and an ode to the nostalgic spirit of Italian summer. Lucy’s collection features five, limited edition, signed and framed prints with five prints per edition.

CAROLINE POPHAM

This series is taken from Unseen Places, a paper cut collage collection exploring landscapes and botany, drawn from memory. The work took shape when travel was limited and adventures had to happen in the mind. The freedom of a journey was such a distant dream, yet in the intensity of that dream, the recognisable shapes and forms of the outside world were abstracted and became exotic. The longing for new horizons made it a quest to look outwards, an exhilaration. New colour palettes, forms and interactions created an internalised, minimalist version of the environment that was at once an homage to it, an evocation, a wish. Caroline's work for the exhibiton comprises a collection of 16 paper cut collages framed in oak.