"Guy in a boilersuit playing the piano" Sculpture

My name is Lila Chatfield and I am an artist focused on quilts and occasionally ceramics and painting, living in Brighton, UK. My colourful hand sewn wall hangings are narrative and expressive in style, embracing a contemporary folk aesthetic. Thematically, my work germinates from mundane happenings and often explores stories of mental states, cognitive dissonance and the edges of birth and death.I draw upon current popular culture, worldwide events and the wilderness of dreams to compose my work which features both abstract and figurative details. I play in an intuitive, improvisational way, often with discarded or vintage cloth and found objects. The boundaries of what is and isn’t a quilt are blurred in my work, which often features sculptural elements. My wall hangings are almost completely hand sewn, imbuing them with an organic feel that embraces the joy of the imperfect and the unexpected. A self-taught artist, I studied English and American Studies at the University of Sussex and worked as a secondary English teacher and later as an education officer before dedicating my time to my art practice.