When I first came across Liorah Tchiprout’s etchings on Instagram a few years ago, I immediately started thinking of Paula Rego. Indeed, the late artist happens to be one of Liorah’s greatest influences. Since then I knew she was going to be a good force in contemporary art.
Fast forward to the present and she has just opened her debut solo show with Marlborough Gallery, represented by this same gallery that lists Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon among their roster. I couldn’t be more proud.
Speaking with her about printmaking, I’ve always appreciated how meticulously she speaks about the etching process and the challenges of aquatint. This time around, I noticed the amazing velvety texture of the figure’s top in Leave Them Laughing When You Go (2023), a testament to the expressive potential of the medium when things just work. The monotypes are nice too, sometimes coloured, and form a nice bridge between her printmaking and painting practices.
I also really love her use of self-made puppets/dolls as models which, when translated onto canvas or print, can sometimes result in rather intense evocations of sorrowful emotion in stark contrast to the nature of the original source. They feel animated and you feel some sort of encounter with a semi-living entity. Having seen them in the flesh, it all feels a bit eerie, but one definitely gains a better sense of the alter-narratives she projects onto them.
Taking up two floors of the gallery, this is a really great opportunity to see Liorah’s work en masse. I’m a big fan and very much look forward to her greater development as an artist.
Liorah Tchiprout: Two Eyes Wide Open at the Edge of Dawn runs from 1 December 2023 to 28 January 2024 at Marlborough London, https://www.marlboroughgallerylondon.com/
Nigel Ip 
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