Ida Lawrence — Languages of Love, 2026

Emmanuelle Firman

Venue

Musée des Tissus et des Arts décoratifs

Lyon

Born in 1988 in Sydney, AustraliaLives and works in Berlin, Germany

In Ida Lawrence’s “story painting” Languages of Love, the narrator visits her relatives, Pakdhe and Budhe, after three years away. Their generous hospitality is accompanied, surprisingly, by an assessment of her place in the afterlife and both are offered, so it might seem, as expressions of care. The painting is set on an imagined tikar, a woven mat common in Central Java, which also provides its underlying structure. Figures and objects shift between its surface and the space of the story, while passages of text weave through the composition. Works from the series Rough Notes/Quotes, displayed nearby, present brief narratives drawn from everyday encounters, in which care, money and obligation become entangled. Painted quickly on sandpaper, they capture everyday negotiations and misunderstandings.

Painting, writing and storytelling converge in Ida Lawrence’s practice, reflecting on memory, kinship and cultural inheritance. Her work engages with the circulation of stories across generations and languages, exploring how transmission, translation and rewriting shape forms of belonging.