Workplace is delighted to present Cadence - an exhibition of new paintings by Newcastle based artists Laura Lancaster and Rachel Lancaster that extends each artists’ preoccupation with ambiguous found imagery as a catalyst for heightened dramatic states. This exhibition will be the first to exhibit the work of the identical twin sisters in direct relation to one another.

Though identical ‘mirror’ twins, who share a studio in Newcastle, Rachel and Laura Lancaster have both developed distinct strategies for making work. Laura Lancaster prepares for painting through an analytical investigation of the structure and composition of her chosen image which she then crops, photocopies and makes drawings of to distance her work from its source. Colour is reintroduced and a palette is carefully mixed, she then works with an alla prima (wet-on-wet) process in a single sitting, allowing the spontaneity of her mark making to hold a moment in dynamic tension. In contrast to this, Rachel Lancaster builds her paintings incrementally over time, applying multiple thin layers of oil paint to accrue on the canvas, creating a layered array of optical effects – the immediacy of the paint’s surface playing off against the hazy, half-remembered qualities characteristic of her chosen images. She manipulates colour and utilises cropping and mark-making techniques to play upon the latent, dreamlike sense of otherness found in cinema, reimagining this upon the canvas.