Lucy Jones With a Handicap Like Yours..., 2018

With a Handicap Like Yours... (2018) shows Lucy Jones standing within a bright yellow canvas, leaning upon her walker. Using complementary colours of purple, visible on the artist’s jumper and her shoes, which are placed against the yellow background, Jones creates a highly contrasted and vibrant image.

Her head is tilted slightly to the right, confronting the viewer directly through her glasses. Her hand on the left is placed above her hip, with her brightly blue painted nails spread out to visualise her uncoordinated body. The hand is repeated, appearing from the lower left side of the canvas. This surreal repetition further emphasises how Jones disturbs the traditional depiction of observing what comprises the nature of the ‘self’. *

The title of the work references a quote from a conversation Jones had with a medical consultant, where her disability was dismissively equated with a pre-determined, limited potential outcome. Jones was discussing physiotherapy to strengthen her hand: 

"The doctor came out with, 'with a handicap like yours' - meaning, what do you expect? In America, I think they still use the expression 'handicap', whereas in Britain it is a rather old-fashioned word. Anyway, I decided that the meaning was to put a third disconnected hand in the painting, poking fun at the doctor and the outside world. I still wonder what he would have done if I had come into his consulting room with a third hand!"

This subversive painting reminds us that nothing is fixed or established.

*Philip Vann in Lucy Jones, Awkward Beauty, 2019.