Lotte Johnson is a Scottish artist from the west coast. She is a graduate of University of the Arts London and is currently studying MA Painting at the Royal College of Art.
‘Linger’ depicts a small fragment of an old photograph, hovering between clarity and disappearance. Drawn from a found image, the work focuses on a small section of hands, isolating an intimate gesture from its original context. This act of cropping reflects an ongoing engagement with photography in my practice, where images are not preserved but translated, reworked, and allowed to evolve through material processes. Painted on silk and veiled with a layer of oil on mesh, the image flickers in and out of view as the surface shifts with light and movement.
This material layering disrupts the act of looking, echoing the instability of memory and the fragility of what we try to hold onto. What appears momentarily legible can just as quickly dissolve, resisting fixity and certainty.
The work focuses on a partial, intimate detail rather than a complete image, emphasising how recollection is often fragmented and incomplete. By isolating and obscuring this moment, Linger explores the tension between presence and absence - what remains and what slips away.
Across the work, processes of repetition, distortion, and subtle visual ‘glitches’ emerge through layering, misalignment, and the interference of materials. These disruptions mimic the way memories are continually re-formed and destabilised over time, never returning as fixed or faithful images.
Through its delicate surfaces and shifting visibility, the piece invites a slower, more tentative way of seeing, where the viewer becomes aware of their own attempt to grasp something that cannot fully be recovered.