The uncanny world of Lawrence Perry’s paintings

Lawrence Perry has just completed a marathon, but not the running kind that you usually see people bragging about on Instagram. Rather, the 25-year-old artist and Slade School of Fine Art graduate has completed a painting marathon in preparation for his debut solo exhibition, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? at the lbf contemporary gallery in London.

The exhibition’s title is taken from Horace McCoy’s 1935 novel of the same name, which tells a story about a Great Depression-era dancing marathon and was adapted into a film in 1969. These marathons were gruelling affairs, where Americans who’d lost their livelihoods would compete for money by dancing in front of wealthy spectators, who would bet on which dancers would last the longest. These marathons, nicknamed ​“bunion derbies”, could go on for weeks, even months at a time. ​“People would sleep for five hours and keep moving while eating,” Lawrence says over the phone.

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is also the title of the exhibition’s central piece, a character painting which captures contradictory feelings of community, joy and exhaustion. Lawrence built out the rest of the show, made up of medium and large-scale figurative portraits, around this painting – all of them are at once hyperrealistic and uncanny, and each character has a playful look in their eye, like they’re in on a joke that’s gone over our head.

​“I was also inspired by the trickster archetype,” he continues. ​“Trickers have all these brilliant qualities about them in the sense that they’re quite anthropomorphic: they can shapeshift, they have the ability to subvert narratives and control things, but they’re also deeply damaged and uncared for characters who are trying to find their inner peace.” His references include Punch and Judy, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, but the first piece Lawrence made for the show, and one of the most striking, is inspired by the Greek myth of Leda and the Swan, which subverts the brutal and extravagant story in a ​“kitsch, camp, humorous way”.

Now that They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? has come to a close, he’s looking forward to painting again – albeit under less regimented conditions, preferably with LCD Soundsystem or Kate Bush blaring in the background. ​“I’m trying to allow myself to enjoy it and not be so hard on myself,” he says. ​“I actually have free will! I’d forgotten about that.”

Do you have any self-imposed rules when it comes to making art?

I’m a big believer in keeping a really clean and ordered studio. If your space is messy, so is your mind. I’m one of the only artists I know who cleans their brushes at the end of every day.

If you could make a rule for a month, like dry January, what would it be?

New thing November. You have to try something new for the whole month. It wouldn’t have to be anything particularly serious or life changing. I could never Heely when I was a kid. So if I could learn to Heely in a month, it would be pretty iconic, winding around in the studio…

What, like the shoe with wheels on the bottom?

Yes. Get some Heelys and figure out the struggle. It’s all about balance, I never had it.

What’s your pet peeve?

I haven’t drunk alcohol for about five years now. Every time I go out, someone says, ​“Go on, just have one!” or ​“Go easy on the J2O!” Annoying.

What should you never do at the table?

Say ​“Shall we skip dessert?”. Let me have my fucking tiramisu.

What’s the last interesting fact you learned?

I recently found out that some scientists did an experiment where they tried to find the colour of the universe. Apparently it’s a warm beige, kind of eggshell colour. They ended up calling it a cosmic latte.

What are weekends for? You can’t say roasts or chilling.

Refuelling and preparing for the week ahead.

If someone were to play you in a movie about your life who would it be?

I have a bit of a crush on Ben Whishaw. I’m not gonna say Paul Mescal – I’m not particularly rugged. I think Ben Whishaw is good at playing a slightly camp, thoughtful person.

If you were on a game show, what would be your entrance song?

Have you seen the Sex and the City adverts from the 2000s? There’s one where they play the [1976 Andrea True] song More, More More and the girls are walking through the streets of New York, hair blowing in the wind. I’d like to walk out to that.

When’s the last time you fell over?

I got hit by a car on the way to my studio once. But the funny thing is we were both going at about five miles per hour, so the whole thing happened in slow motion. We instantly apologised to each other and just got on with it. It was very, very British.

Can you leave us with some words to live by?

People always overestimate what you can do in a year, but underestimate what you can do in three. They put pressure on themselves to make things happen immediately, but great things take time and groundwork.