In her debut solo exhibition with LBF Contemporary, British-Caribbean artist Gaia Ozwyn invites us into a space charged with intimacy and introspection. Titled Incantations to a Vague Borderland, the exhibition unfolds as a contemplative space where viewers engage in the liminal.
A trained doctor and recent graduate of the Royal College of Art, Ozwyn’s work navigates life both within and beyond established systems, and resists the notion of identity being fixed.
Chard Adio: You’ve spent years studying and practising medicine, and now you’re a full-time artist with your first solo show. How did you get to this point? And what was the transition like from medical doctor to artist?
Gaia Ozwyn: The transition from being a medical doctor to an artist wasn’t overnight. I was creative from a young age, but I didn’t see art as something I could do as a career because there weren’t any examples of people around me who had taken that route. But I didn’t abandon painting—it was always part of my life; I just saw it as something I would only be able to do in my spare time. When I started working as a doctor, I would do these long shifts and then spend a couple of hours painting in my makeshift studio at home at the end of the day. The idea of pivoting started to take shape when I began exhibiting my work with more serious intent. I was also starting to reduce my hours in the hospital to spend more time painting. The crucial turning point came when I decided to pursue an MA at the RCA, I was surrounded by other artists and received the critical feedback that I needed. So my journey into the art world was gradual, and even to this day I haven’t completely left medicine—I still work in the hospital occasionally.
And how do you think your experience as a medical doctor has influenced your practice? What do you think are the similarities and differences between the two professions?
My experience as a medical doctor has definitely influenced my practice. People might see art and medicine as being disparate, but there are a lot of transferable skills and ways of thinking that connect the two. From a methodical perspective, both professions involve problem-solving. As a medical doctor, you’re trying to solve problems, whereas as an artist, you’re often creating them—but still responsible for resolving them. I think the difference lies in this presence of pressure: as an artist, the pressure is more internal, whereas, in medicine, it’s often external and more immediate. As an artist, I have learned to embrace and even seek out the unpredictable. But as a doctor, too much uncertainty can be uncomfortable.
Up until this point you’ve done group shows. With this being your first-ever solo show, how do you feel? And how did you feel when it came to creating the work for this particular show?
I feel good—it’s definitely an exciting moment in my career. When I look back on the journey leading up to this show, it’s been really positive. The team at LBF Contemporary have been incredibly supportive and encouraging, and it’s because of that I gained this new confidence that pushed the work in this new direction that feels natural. With this being my first-ever solo show, I definitely had to shake things up and change my approach to how the work would be made. In the past, I think I was more insular, but for this show, I wanted each work to inform the next in a sort of symbiotic relationship.
Before this show, you did a residency with Yinka Shonibare’s G.A.S. Foundation in Lagos. How was your overall experience, and how do you think it impacted the work in this show?
Lagos was fun—the residency was such a great experience! What really struck me was the ingenuity in how materials were used. I also had access to the Picton Library at the G.A.S. Foundation, and that allowed me to delve deeper into topics that I didn’t really know that much about before. My understanding of space also evolved. I found the use of transitional spaces in Nigerian architecture fascinating, and I spent some time researching the design principles behind liminality. I started thinking differently about my use of physical space in the work, and how I could create more tangible environments. The residency also gave me this extra push to bring certain pieces to where they needed to be for this show. Before the residency, a few paintings were stuck in this WIP (work-in-progress) state. But once I was back, I had this real sense of clarity, and I just entered this state of flow.
The title of the show is Incantations to A Vague Borderland, how did the title come about?
The title comes from a painting I made last year. I went back and forth with other options, but I kept coming back to this one, and it just felt right. Incantations to a Vague Borderland is really about delving into the unclassifiable. We don’t have great ways of categorising things, because there’s so much nuance in our world. Yet society constantly pushes us to define and label everything—it almost depends on us doing it. So, for me, the title is a response to that pressure. It’s my way of resisting it and exploring what it means to live in that in-between space—a kind of borderland where you might find solace.
Let’s talk about the materials you use because you’re known for using concrete in the work—there’s definitely an interplay between concrete and oil in the pieces?
The use of concrete comes from wanting to explore the relationship between opposing elements. When you think about it, concrete and oil are such contrasting materials, but when they come together, they create this really interesting dialogue that fascinates me. Before I started using concrete, I was already trying to create a sense of juxtaposition in the work, and that began with me manipulating colour—I would play with different tones in a single piece. But what really pushed me to start incorporating concrete was the fact I didn’t have a “traditional” art background. I wasn’t bound by a rulebook—there were no guardrails—so it felt quite natural to introduce concrete into the work. When I think about the interplay between these two materials, I think about how oil paint is generally perceived. It’s often associated with beauty because of its malleability—even when it’s used to depict something grotesque or unsettling. But on the other hand, concrete doesn’t have the same connotations in the art world, it tends to be seen as a brutal or harsh material. Something I often return to when making the work is the Soviet montage theory, a film technique developed by the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein. Within it, you have different montages: metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual. In intellectual montages, you can create a new meaning by placing two opposing images after each other. For example, if you show a baby in a pushchair, that might evoke ideas such as family. But if you then cut to a lion, and alternate between the two shots, a third meaning emerges, and now you begin to think about danger or vulnerability. So that’s why I keep coming back to concrete because within the work this third space appears, this unexpected friction.
And in terms of process, how do you move from an initial idea to a finished painting when working with a material like concrete?
I usually start with a rough compositional idea in my head, and the inspiration for this can come from anything, which isn’t necessarily visual. For example, it can be a line from a poem that has impacted me, or a phrase from a book, or a conversation. I will initially sketch out the idea on paper, and when I feel like the idea is starting to work, I will then start working on some colour studies too. Recently I’ve also started using Procreate on my iPad to pull elements from previous paintings onto my physical sketches to create a kind of collage that helps me re-orientate the elements. For the paintings with concrete, there is a fixed point in the composition that can’t be changed, so I have to take a different approach depending on the work. Once the concrete is affixed, I’ll begin with a washy, gestural underpainting. For paintings that have no concrete, my compositional approach is a bit more flexible, and I’ll often allow myself to explore the gesture in absence of any fixed element in the painting.
One thing viewers will immediately notice in this show is the piece, Collapse of the Personal Dimension, it curves across the wall and continues onto the ceiling. How did that piece come about? Because when I look at it, I instantly think about ceiling art seen in Italian architecture—places like the Sistine Chapel or the Palazzo Farnese. In today’s contemporary landscape, we rarely see such art. So what drew you to revisit this form of art?
I wanted to convey this idea of being in an environment that feels unrecognisable—something nebulous. With the piece, you’re transported into this other realm, and you’re free to enter and explore it. You mentioned two famous examples, but the painting is actually inspired by two other pieces. The first inspiration comes from Andrea Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi. When you enter the Ducal Palace, you’re met with this illusionistic ceiling painting that begins halfway up the wall and continues seamlessly onto the ceiling. For most people who see the Camera degli Sposi, that continuation throws them off because they eventually realise the ceiling’s curvature isn’t real. So instead of seeing the painting as a static object, the viewer experiences it as something with movement. The second inspiration comes from Magritte’s L’Empire des Lumières. In that piece, it’s night at the bottom, but bright blue skies above—so it’s doing two things at once. I wanted to bring a similar duality into Collapse of the Personal Dimension because the painting transitions from a dark colour palette to a lighter one as you move from the wall to the ceiling.
Let’s talk about your artistic philosophy. Because, in the past, you’ve spoken about the work exploring this idea of “quasi-belonging”.
When I think about the idea of belonging, I see it as something amorphous; but that is largely contradictory to our tendency to categorise everything. If you think back to early civilisation, categorisation was tied to survival—you had to quickly determine whether something was a threat—it was an evolutionary advantage. But when we look at modern society, things aren’t so binary anymore—they’re far more multifaceted and nuanced. You can’t really categorise anything so easily now, and that’s what makes the world we live in a bit more interesting. But I think social conditioning and societal norms have instilled in us this compulsion to fit everything into boxes. I grew up in Devon, in the South West of England, which wasn’t a particularly diverse area. I wasn’t often overtly excluded, but I never quite felt like I belonged. I think the lack of diversity limited me from connecting with my dad’s Jamaican heritage. But beyond this aspect of my culture, even my interests were questioned. I had this eclectic mix of hobbies—art, science, and martial arts—and people didn’t really know how to put me in a box. So that’s where this idea of “quasi-belonging” started from. Because it’s not just personal to me. I think most people, at some point, feel that they don’t quite fit into a “neat little box”. So the work is a response to those feelings, it’s a space where viewers can seek refuge.
And do you think the fact that your work is abstract helps?
I think so, because with figurative painting, the meaning can be a lot more explicit, you can sometimes determine the narrative straightaway. But with abstract work or work that deals with abstract concepts, the meaning isn’t always obvious, and I think there’s less pressure for the viewer to figure things out straightaway. They have to spend a little more time with it, and I quite like that. I don’t think artists need to be so prescriptive or didactic with their work. I think the viewer and I can go on this journey to discover our own meaning from the work—so a collaborative journey, without the burden of finding a definitive answer.
You’ve also mentioned how your work explores intermediary spaces and seeks to dismantle false dichotomies. Could you tell us more about the two?
The exploration of intermediary spaces ties back to this idea of quasi-belonging, and it’s especially relevant when it comes to examining identity. As I mentioned before, my dad is Jamaican, and in terms of my mum, she is English and also lives in West Africa. So when I talk about intermediary spaces, I’m referring to my own experience because during a lot of my life, I felt like I was straddling between two different worlds, and existing in this intermediary space. On reflection, when I think about this show, this theme of loneliness also appears. Loneliness is such an interesting feeling—it’s so intrinsically linked to the human experience. But despite that, it’s often painted as something extreme or unusual. And it’s not. It’s a normal emotion, but it still gets wrapped up in this false narrative. And if we shift to this concept of dismantling false dichotomies, that’s what I’m also trying to achieve with the work. I want the work to be a space where people can sit with those feelings—ones that are often misunderstood or oversimplified—and start to reframe them.
What about colour because that also plays a huge role in the work?
Colour is definitely crucial to my practice, and it’s one of the most interesting tools you can have as an artist because it allows you to create mood and drama in the work—artists like Rothko and Frankenthaler absolutely blow my mind because they have such a mastery of linking emotions to colour. Within a painting, you can weave such subtle interchanges using colour, and I love that! You can almost make the audience work a bit harder to notice those differences—I like that. I like giving the viewer this “reward” for taking time to really look. That’s why you can’t beat the in-person experience with art because you see those shifts in colour and how they play with each other.
With everything we’ve discussed, what do you ultimately hope viewers take away from the show and the work they see?
It’s an interesting final question, and it really ties back to what I mentioned earlier. I just want people to take from the work what they need, whether that’s now, or in 100 years. The paintings in the show serve as a place of refuge, and I want viewers to derive their own meaning. I don’t want the work to feel anchored in a particular time; I want viewers to connect with the work regardless of when they encounter it. So if you connect with the work one way now, and revisit it years down the line, then that’s fine if you take something else from it!
Follow: @gaia.ozwyn
