Current Project
2025 – 2027
Birds and People: Nests as records of our interconnected behaviour
Red-rumped Wheatears’ nests, found in Algeria 1911 Watercolour 35 x 69cm by Lillias August ©
I have been working on a project with Douglas G D Russell, Senior Curator of Eggs and Nests at the Natural History Museum. We have been investigating and interpreting nests that contain manmade materials. My series of paintings begins with a nest found in 1902 at the end of the 2nd Boer war in South Africa and ends in 2025 in Ukraine. To begin and end in a war zone was unintentional but it feels meaningful. Each painting will speak about their place in history and their environment and I hope that the paintings will enhance their stories and leave a lot for us to think about. For further details see my blog
Past Projects
The construction of a vaulted ceiling
St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (2009 – 2011)
Following her work as project artist for St Edmundsbury Cathedral during the building of the central tower (see below), Lillias watched the construction of the vaulted ceiling that now sits inside the tower itself. She drew the individual sections being carved, pieced together and later re-assembled and decorated on site. Her work came together in an exhibition, ‘Fragments – images of a vaulted ceiling’, in November 2011. A 36 page, fully illustrated book accompanied the exhibition.
Watch video (1.20 mins) by kind permission Freeland Rees Roberts Architects
“I followed it through from beginning to end, watching the initial pieces being carved and assembled in the joiners to it being reassembled and painted in the Cathedral tower. As the ceiling slowly appeared other things disappeared. Each individual stage of the process had its own beauty which soon became absorbed within the next stage – the frame sank beneath the carvings as they were put in place, the carvings relinquished their independence as they came together and the bare wood was eventually cloaked behind a veil of pale undercoat. All these stages ultimately came together behind the glorious decoration that sings at the top of the tower. The work reflects my interest in the ‘individual components’ which make up the ‘whole’ – an obsession that started when I was project artist at the cathedral during the building of the Millennium tower (2000 – 2005). They may be hidden but without them the thing would collapse.”
A – Z of Still Life
In 2010 Lillias painted 2-3 still life paintings a week culminating for an exhibition, ‘A – Z of still life’ at Wildwood Gallery, Churchgate Street, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. 24 of the 26 paintings were sold and a percentage of the sales were donated to the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution (AGBI – charity no 212667) for whom Lillias was the 2010/11 RI steward.
Limited edition giclée prints of the paintings above can be purchased here
” I find still life a good discipline – it keeps my eye in. But, equally, it can give ordinary objects a new life where their simplicity can be evocative and symbolic”see article EADT 4th December 2010
The Millennium Tower 2000 – 2005
Suffolk Cathedral Millennium Project, St Edmundsbury Cathedral, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Symbolically taking place at the start of the third millennium, the Suffolk Cathedral Millennium Project included the completion of the central tower, the north transept, part of the cloisters and two new chapels at St Edmundsbury Cathedral in Suffolk. Built to last a thousand years, it is one of only a few Millennium Lottery projects with a spiritual significance. Lillias was project artist during the construction of the tower. Her work culminated in a very successful exhibition, the production of an illustrated book with an essay by Ronald Blythe and her personal response to the project, the Cross Series, which toured to several cathedrals and can be seen here.
For further information including book purchases please contact Lillias through her contacts page