Writing about Lydia Kiernan is difficult given her self-confessed loathing of this kind of appraisal. It is also true that anything notable to be said is evident in the work, it speaks for itself.

Predictably, Lydia's love of horses stems from a childhood passion; she was drawn to her local stables with the same infatuation shared by so many little girls who find the lure of this animal irresistible. Later, she trained at Falmouth School of Art and was thus afforded the privilege of combining her two great loves.

Where the subject is not in any way original, Lydia's artistic expression of it is. This is largely to do with the fact she is unhindered by the archetypal and often unavoidable emotional or sentimental image of the horse. Instead of this she is driven by the pursuit of creative experiment and growth.

Lydia considers drawing to be of paramount importance and it is this technical awareness that forms the foundation of her work, with this she is able to make abstract anatomical references that acknowledge the horse as a skeletal creature. From here Lydia allows the work to take on it's own identity and dictate it's own conclusion.

The greatest compliment to Lydia's work is the approval that it has received from those who work closely with horses in their day-to-day lives, many of whom appreciate it despite an otherwise cynical attitude towards equestrian art.

P. Compton (Writer)