Lucy Neish
Better than I expected, worse than I hoped
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Night Café is pleased to introduce 'Better than expected, worse than I hoped', a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by Lucy Neish, on view from March 13 to April 11, 2026, at 162 New Cavendish Street. To accompany the exhibition, a book with the same name has been published, featuring an interview with the artist, a text by writer Billy Parker, and a preface by Maribelle Bierens. The exhibition begins from the premise that memory does not reproduce moments as they happened. Instead, it is continuously edited and structured, replayed selectively while gaps are filled with fabricated fragments. Lucy Neish has meticulously kept written records, photographs, screenshots, and recordings for years, yet even these careful archives cannot prevent details from slipping or being replaced. When she recreates these records in her paintings and drawings, this slippage becomes central, loosening the grip on a stable or singular version of reality.
The places Neish depicts form the cornerstones of her everyday life, including the churchyard behind her home, a pool in the park at the top of the hill, a view from a hotel room in Tokyo, and flowers on the communal studio bathroom window. By returning to these locations, the paintings map the physical boundaries of her daily routine. Neish works in densely layered, low contrast compositions that require slow and sustained attention. This method runs counter to the rapid pace at which images circulate today, where thousands pass before our eyes each day across phones, laptops, televisions, and messaging platforms. In Neish’s practice, images are not quickly consumed and discarded. Instead, they are revisited, prolonged, and examined through a process of close observation.
