Conflict of Interests

Conflict of Interests is the first solo exhibition of Warrington-based printmaker and illustrator Lucy Morris, taking place at Arts Bar Baltic in Elevator Studios in Liverpool this May, curated by Francesca Fryer.

Private view will be taking place 6-9pm on Tuesday 5th May – open to all!

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The exhibition is built around recurring themes – class, glamour, and aspiration –  that overlap and intersect to create a surreal contrast, inviting the viewer to question the familiarness and glimpses of reality within the work. Influenced by writers such as John Steinbeck and Carson McCullers, she shares their attention to working-class lives, portraying everyday figures with dignity, elegance, and quiet drama. Ornate bars, famous hotels, fur coats, and sharply tailored suits become stages onto which she places working-class subjects – collapsing traditional boundaries between privilege and ordinariness. Literature continues to inform her imagery, with contemporary voices such as Jen Beagin and Miranda July shaping her portrayals of female agency, performance, and solitude.

Though autobiographical in atmosphere, the work remains emotionally restrained, reflecting what she describes as a “superficial everyday life”: martinis at dusk, patterned wallpaper, heavy ashtrays, women in heels at dressing tables. Through this lens, she offers viewers both nostalgia and escapism, inventing a mid-century world that feels at once distant and intimately familiar.

For this upcoming exhibition, Morris fully embraces this interplay between permanence and fantasy, physical process and imagined space. The works invite viewers to see themselves reflected in scenes they may never have lived, yet somehow recognise –  an exploration of glamour, class, and memory carved in ink and shadow.