Lara Davies works across figuration and abstraction to explore the interplay between place, memory and personal history. Her latest body of work was inspired by a 2023 cycling journey from Land’s End to John o’Groats, taken in homage to her late great-aunt Margie, who made the same trip on horseback in 1949. This 1,231-mile pilgrimage allowed Davies to connect with her family history and the shifting landscapes of the British Isles. The resulting paintings are imbued with a dreamlike aesthetic, where lochs, hillsides, seascapes and cloud formations appear as though in motion, transitory and ephemeral. Davies’s more abstract paintings are inspired by visual aspects of her domestic environment. Faded wallpaper, curtains and carpets are reinterpreted in oil paint to create subtle artworks imbued with a comforting sense of nostalgia.

Davies’ work is held in international private and public collections. She has exhibited at The Saatchi Gallery, London; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Pearl, London; The Walker Museum, Liverpool (The John Moores Painting Prize); Irving Gallery, Oxford; Warbling Collective, London. In 2025, Canopy Collections curated her first solo exhibition, titled Lara Davies: We watched the day grow older.