The Party Never Stops

John Lloyd is a London-based painter working primarily in oil on canvas and mixed media. His practice begins with black-and-white archival photography from the 1950s and 1960s, which serves as a starting point for exploring colour, memory and perception. Working initially without colour allows Lloyd to experiment freely with palette, using colour to shift mood and meaning rather than simply describe reality. Selected images are digitally manipulated in Photoshop, removed from their original context and then translated into layered paintings.

His work explores domestic and social settings, blending the familiar with surreal motifs such as exaggerated objects and distorted figures to challenge notions of home as a stable or comforting space. Influenced by artists including Philip Guston, Lloyd’s paintings aim to evoke both humour and unease, creating scenes that feel at once recognisable and unsettling.

Recent works focus on dreamlike party scenes that blur the boundaries between public and private environments, examining themes of connection, isolation and social performance. By working with found imagery rather than personal references, Lloyd encourages viewers to form their own interpretations, inviting reflection on nostalgia, identity and the complexities of human experience within a contemporary context.

The Party Never Stops delves deeper into Lloyd’s exploration of spatial perception. This work immerses the viewer in a dynamic party scene, centring on a couple on the dance floor, creating their own space in a busy environment. We are able to manipulate spaces through our body language, and by doing so, can change the narrative of a setting. Lloyd has chosen to reimagine this environment through a romantic lens, depicting the couple with such intimacy that they merge into a single entity

Tannery Projects

This display is a part of Tannery Arts’ occasional exhibition and events programme run by and for Tannery Artists. Tannery Projects aims to encourage new discourse between Tannery Artists and engagement with London contemporary art, through excellence and innovation.