Lillias August

The moving still life paintings of Lillias August RI

Lillias August’s remarkable paintings add extra to the ordinary. In her deceptively simple but exquisite watercolours, everyday or familiar objects are endowed with a fresh identity that enables them to be observed in a new way. Pomegranates, keys, garlic bulbs, gardening gloves, even nine deconstructed sections of decommissioned handguns are imbued with a new quality and are transformed into objects that demand your attention - subjects that are often ‘inspired by simplicity and history - the signs of everyday use and the mystery of a lost story’.

Lillias’ unique approach to still life painting in watercolour has been developed and matured over time. Based in Suffolk, she was the project artist during the Suffolk Cathedral Millennium Project - a huge project which included the building of the central tower and its highly decorated vaulted ceiling at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Bury St Edmunds. In the final sell-out exhibition Ronald Blythe wrote in his foreword that those who look at her work “might search for and find a continuing of things which history often insists is over. They will see a building site, but with a difference - one which shows what Ruskin understood, that to see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion - all in one.” It was around this time when Lillias was elected as a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) and it was this project, where she studied all the components of the building process, that had an influence on her move to still life. Some of these paintings, kept back by Lillias, can be seen in this exhibition.

Lillias also comments that the flat, unpretentious East Anglian landscape where everything is “laid out in front of you” has influenced her still life painting. She says “Still life will always be alive because there is more to it than meets the eye - it is intimate yet worldly, simple yet powerful, quiet yet evocative……The objects that I paint are ordinary everyday things. Painting them close up and often in multiples, is a way of concentrating directly on them with no distraction - a way of forcing observation as if they were in a museum.”

Lillias’ working method is not immediate. She plans her watercolours meticulously and uses a surprisingly restricted palette - two blues, two reds, two yellows, Burnt and Raw Sienna and Viridian - from which she mixes a seemingly endless number of colour combinations. She doesn’t use white, preferring the traditional technique of watercolour painting where the white of the paper provides the highlights. She works on each painting as a whole, gradually building up tone and colour and moving from large washes to more detailed structure until she achieves an almost sculptural quality to her compositions.

I very much hope that you will enjoy this exhibition of Lillias’ work at the Chappel Gallery and find some images from the ones presented here, that will really catch your eye. In the words of my late friend and colleague and previous RI President, Andy Wood, commenting on Lillias’ work: 

‘Take another look - these are beautiful and mysterious things’

Chris Myers PRI RBA
President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
January 2025

Lillias August RI CV 2000-25

Lillias August was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI) in 2006. She had exhibited annually with them since 2000. She has won many awards including eight at the RI alone and has been on the RI Council from 2014 – 2024 including eight years as Honorary Secretary. She is currently Patron of the Society of East Anglian Watercolourists (SEAW).

2006 – 2025 annual exhibitor as a member of the RI, Mall Galleries, London PRIZEWINNER in 2002, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2017, 2019 (2 Awards), 2020

2024 RI at Iona House Gallery, Woodstock / International Watercolour Masters (IWM) exhibition, Lilleshall Hall, Shropshire

2023 AKA Contemporary, Cambridge – joint exhibition with sculptor, Jonathan Clarke

2022 RI at Linden Hall Studios, Deal, Kent/ AKA Contemporary, Cambridge – inaugural exhibition

2021 Sunday Times Watercolour Competition – Mall Galleries, London / Beaux Art, Bath, ‘Still’ / Thompson’s Gallery, London / North House Gallery, Manningtree / AKA Fine Art, Kettles yard, Cambridge / Adrian Hill Fine Art, Holt, Norfolk ‘Connected by colour’

2020 ING Discerning Eye exhibition, Mall Galleries, London / Sunday Times Watercolour Competition – Willis Museum and Sainsbury Gallery, Basingstoke / Adrian Hill Fine Art – Holt, ‘A Narrative’

2019 RI at The Lighbox, Woking / SEAW (Society of East Anglian Watercolourists) Long Melford, Suffolk – exhibiting as Patron / Hunter Gallery – Bury St Edmunds / Adrian Hill Fine Art, Norfolk

2018 Adrian Hill Fine Art – Holt, Norfolk / RI, Naomi Tydeman Gallery, Tenby, Wales

2017 Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, Mall Galleries, London / Beaux Arts Gallery, Bath / RI, Horsham Museum and Art Gallery / RI, Albany Gallery, Cardiff / SOLO show - Old Fire Engine House, Ely / IEA (Institute of East Anglian Artists) Buckenham Gallery, Southwold

2016 IEA, Adrian Hill Fine Art Holt / RI, Splash, Mall Galleries, London / SEAW Babylon Gallery, Ely

2015 Walton and Bovill Fine Art,Long Melford, Suffolk / SOLO show - Edmund Gallery, Suffolk

2014 Walton and Bovill Fine Art, Long Melford / IEA, Mandell’s Gallery, Norwich / RI, Tenby Museum, Pembrokeshire, Wales / RI, Lloyds Register, London

2013 IEA, Holt, Norfolk / Contemporary East Anglian Artists, Gainsborough’s House , Sudbury, Suffolk / ‘Still Alive’, FBA members exhibition, Mall Galleries, London

2012 IEA inaugural exhibition, Holt, Norfolk / Federation of British Artists presents London, Mall Galleries, London / London Views RAC club, Pall Mall, London / RI in Rye, Rye Art Gallery / RI at the National Theatre, Southbank, London

2011 SOLO show ‘Fragments, images from a vaulted ceiling’, Edmund Gallery, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk / Assembly House, Norwich

2010 SOLO show ‘A-Z of Still Life’, Wildwood Gallery, Bury St Edmunds / Watercolour Academy, Mall Galleries, London / Suffolk showcase, Smiths Row, Bury st Edmunds, Suffolk / RI exhibition Gallery Lefort Fine Art, Bath

2000 – 2010 Project artist, during the building of the new central tower and its vaulted ceiling at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St. Edmunds (Suffolk Cathedral Millennium Project).
‘Cross’, a series of paintings that grew out of the project, toured to Ely, Peterborough and Lincoln Cathedrals and to Southwell Minster with grants from, amongst others, Arts Council England East