Twin painters share Baltic spotlight
Laura and Rachel Lancaster on their major joint show
It was 2001, must have been early summer. An excited call from Northumbria University press office. Twins, they said, graduating together in fine art.
They might have said identical twins. Probably did, since that would have further sparked a journalist’s interest. But that led to my first encounter with Laura and Rachel Lancaster, from Hartlepool.
Can’t remember what was said but I do remember being impressed with their paintings – and impressed that they were painters. Aspiring artists seemed video fixated back then.
What would they do next? Where would they go? Questions I always asked art students in those days because most had their sights set on London.
This, remember, was a year before Baltic opened, injecting yet more excitement and possibility into the North East art scene (The Angel of the North had appeared in 1998, the year the Lancasters began their degrees).
In the case of the twins, the answers to those stock questions are that they continued painting and stuck around, aided no doubt by Workplace, the gallery set up in Gateshead in 2002 by Miles Thurlow and the late Paul Moss which represents both of them.
Laura and Rachel have shared a studio since 2012 in Newcastle’s Ouseburn Valley – 36 Lime Street - and now here they are with a big joint show about to open at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
And I’m meeting them again, each now an artist with a reputation and following. While some paintings here are newly commissioned by Baltic, others have been loaned by owners including the Government Art Collection which bought a painting by Rachel in 2023.
This is the first painting exhibition in Baltic’s Level 3 gallery space for 10 years, the twins tell me. It’s also their first shared exhibition in a major institution. So are they nervous, excited?
“Bit of both really,” says Laura.
“It’s quite an honour to be given this platform. I think there were nerves but now we can see it looks good we can relax a bit.
“They’re expecting nearly 1,000 people at the preview and it’s exciting to see there’s that appetite for art.”
“Because we’ve both shown a lot elsewhere it’s nice to have this calibre of gallery space in the region,” adds Rachel.
“We’re lucky that people who live where we live can get to see this. We’re looking forward to the feedback.”
Some of the paintings Rachel is exhibiting are the biggest she’s undertaken so her curiosity’s understandable.
That the twins hugely support each other is obvious. A new painting by Rachel is the first you’ll see, given what might be called pride of place. But there was no fighting over the spot.
“Laura conceded,” says Rachel, within earshot of a smiling Laura.
As for being identical, well, there’s a sisterly similarity, although they advise that they’re hard to distinguish on recordings. Since I am recording, they pepper responses with “Rachel here” or “Laura speaking” – a blessing, it turns out.
Their paintings are intermingled in the exhibition and it’s effective. “We wanted a conversation between them,” suggests Laura.
Their work complements each other while being stylistically different, Rachel’s edging towards photo-realism and Laura’s more dynamic and impressionistic.
But what they share is that their subjects are offered to us at one remove, Rachel picking stills from obscure films, mostly from the 1980s or 1990s, and Laura inspired by old photos, usually of women in landscapes or beside water, anonymous and sourced on eBay and elsewhere.
In front of that introductory painting, Rachel explains how she scans multiple images before finding one that “has poignancy or grabs me in some way”, such as this of a reclining woman with the focus and sunlight falling on her yellow cardigan,
“There are 15 paintings in the show but in order to get those images I sifted through about 500 others, so there’s quite a hard selection process.
“The reason I liked this one is I’m interested in the idea of memory and how colour and light can evoke a sense of place and time, and especially how fabrics and textures can trigger feelings in the viewer.
“This cardigan is the sort of thing we see every day but putting it in a gallery makes you view it differently and notice things.”
Rachel says photo-realist paintings can seem “overworked”, giving the impression of deadness, “whereas hopefully mine give just enough information, so you can sense what it is and almost feel it but in a sense there’s nothing there”.
The cardigan painting is called Notes Lie Long. Rachel says no white paint was used, the bleached pool of sunlight arrived at by wiping away paint to expose the canvas beneath.
Nearby hangs Laura’s Long Time Listener, full of latent energy against the languor of Rachel’s brushwork.
It was inspired by a small black and white snap showing someone who would no doubt have been amazed to know where she’d end up, although while the figure is defined the features are not.
“Whereas Rachel’s technique is layered and quite considered, mine’s more reactionary,” says Laura.
“I’ll start painting with broad strokes to get the tones and build on that, wiping away and adding.
“It can shift a lot during the process until, hopefully, it feels it’s landed at the right configuration, but there’s always a tension between stillness and movement.”
And if you’re wondering about those titles, and also the poetically vague one chosen for the exhibition as a whole, Remember, Somewhere, Laura explains that they both store phrases that appeal to them, film quotes, song lyrics or sometimes just overheard.
“We keep them in phone notes or written down so when we come to a show we go through them all and see which seem to connect to certain images.”
Aided by curator Niomi Fairweather, and quick to acknowledge Baltic’s support, the twins are delighted to have got to this point. They stayed in the region but it’s been a journey.
Growing up in Hartlepool, they were “always making things” (Rachel speaking) and were encouraged by their parents.
Their father, Wilfred, was a secondary school teacher and keen amateur painter.
(Still Rachel) “There was a seriousness about the way our dad took art. There weren’t many art galleries in Hartlepool but we had trips to Middlesbrough to see stuff.
“Our mum (Ann) was like, if you want to do that you’ll have to work hard at it but, yes, go for it. They’ve both passed away in recent years but were massive advocates. They’d have got such a kick out of this.”
Brendan, one of their two older brothers, became an artist ahead of them.
(Laura) “When Brendan was doing sixth form art and we were 10 or 11, we’d see him come in covered in charcoal and think, ‘Oh, that looks like it could be fun’.”
Northumbria Uni having been recommended by a tutor at Cleveland College of Art & Design, they headed for Newcastle (Laura: “Far enough away but not too intimidating”).
And despite the lure of ‘new technology’ they stuck with paint, although Laura remembers: “It was seen as a bit old school, not cool.
“There had to be a conceptual reason why you were painting. It was always, ‘Why are you painting?’ You had to explain yourself whereas I think it’s shifted again and is a lot more accepted.”
Going to Newcastle University to do a master’s degree in 2009, Rachel embarked on a period away from painting, focusing instead on film and photography.
But she has come back to it, using paint but inspired by film.
(Laura) “I think painting has its own language and it feels like the best one for us to express ourselves in. All the things that were seen as negative we read as positive.
“It’s ancient, messy, seems irrelevant… all that made me think, ‘Well, that’s why I like it’.
“It’s about the physical process and where your mind goes when you’re painting. It creates a different space in your mind. You sort of make a new world in paint. It’s quite addictive in a way.”
(Rachel). “The painters we like (she mentions Jenny Saville, known for her large and unglamourised nude portraits of women) are quite emotive so it’s always been all about feelings and stuff.
“And if you’re using photography it’s always a photograph of something whereas with paint you can use the material to make anything.”
The twins remind me that music has played its part, both having sung and played guitar in bands including punk outfit Silver Fox (also featuring Newcastle University art graduate Susie Green) and Meandthetwins with Paul Smith of Maximo Park.
Smith, another former art college colleague, is to perform a DJ set at the exhibition preview, along with Ross Millard of The Futureheads.
No wonder it’s sold out (although tickets were free). But the pull of the painting shouldn’t be overlooked - and also opening is another exhibition on Level 4, How I Am Monument by Lebanese artist Ali Cherri.
Remember, Somewhere by Laura and Rachel Lancaster opens at Baltic on Saturday, April 12, and runs until October 12. Baltic opens Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm.