06 may 2025, Flor Linckens
Lawrence James Bailey: between system and nature
In the solo exhibition 'Bare Machine' at Galerie Bart in Amsterdam, Lawrence James Bailey examines the relationship between people and their surroundings. The British artist is known for his textile portraits, that often feature figures who seem to dwell in no man’s lands. On the margins of civilisation, in places that fall outside our conventional ideas of the picturesque or romantic landscape, Bailey questions what it means to be human in a world that is accelerating. What happens when the systems we rely on begin to falter? When institutions, conventions and cultural certainties lose their grip, who is left standing?
In this unstable terrain, the human figure is stripped back to a vulnerable, unprotected presence, left to face the world alone. Bailey’s work invites us to reconsider our place within it, beyond what is familiar or comfortable. His figures appear suspended between two states: part of nature, yet profoundly estranged from it. Their gazes are impenetrable, their postures exposed. At times they stand in barren landscapes, at other moments in in more ambiguous settings.
Yet Bailey’s work is not purely dystopian. Within his dancing figures, camouflage motifs and layered compositions lies a longing to merge with the environment, to reconnect with something that predates societal structures. By rooting his characters back into the earth, he suggests an alternative way of being, one not shaped by imposed identities but driven by something more elemental. The exhibition 'Bare Machine' appears to be a call to make space for the unknowable and the elusive, while staying attuned to what binds us as human beings.
Through a process of recycling and improvisation, Bailey transforms his observations into wall hangings, banners and other textile works. He works primarily with embroidery and second-hand fabrics, sourced in thrift shops, flea markets or online. In his practice, traditional craft techniques are combined with a raw and contemporary visual language. From layers of cloth and thread, fields of colour and shadow emerge, with results that are both painterly and sculptural. One piece features the phrase "As Relics of the Wild We Perform Rituals of the Tame" against a grey background, its ragged threads curling away from the letters like loose strands of thought. It encapsulates the exhibition’s central idea: how we, once shaped by the wild, have become entangled in systems built for control.
For this recent body of work, Bailey drew on a wide range of sources, which he recently shared in a series of Instagram stories. Among them are the penetrating stares found in the work of Hans Holbein and Northern Renaissance painters such as Bruegel and Van Eyck. Another key reference is the medieval Green Man, a symbol of natural cycles and renewal. Bailey: “A decorative element originally incorporated into medieval church architecture. The image of a face spouting leaves has unclear meaning or purpose… a throwback to pagan beliefs? A reminder of natural cycles? A 15th century meme?” One work in the exhibition depicts a Green Man raising a burning British flag. Other sources include the dancing plague of Strasbourg in 1518. Bailey: “If all the peasants are inexplicably dancing until their bodies give up, who will do all the work? And will it herald the end of the world?” The artist also cites the 16th-century print 'Il Mondo Alla Riversa', in which social roles are turned upside down, as well as 1980s post-apocalyptic films that reflect fears of systemic collapse, and the Arts & Crafts movement, a reaction to industrialisation. Finally, he mentions the paintings of Frans Hals, marked by shadowy backdrops and ironic, almost mocking expressions. Attentive viewers will find these influences woven throughout the exhibition.
Lawrence James Bailey was born in 1976 in Stoke-on-Trent and studied Fine Art at the Hull School of Art in the United Kingdom. He later completed a two-year residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam, where he has lived and worked since 2001. His work has been shown at the Textile Biennial at Museum Rijswijk, AirSpace Gallery in his hometown and the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in Riga. His textile pieces are part of various collections, including those of the Amsterdam Museum, Huize Frankendael, Europol and De Ateliers.
