Lola Stong-Brett is an oil painter based in Margate whose work draws deeply from her immediate surroundings. Interlacing memory and nostalgia, Lola’s paintings look at her relationship with others, becoming like diary entries, exploring the natural ebb and flow of everyday existence. Her paintings mingle between joy and despair, using playful familiarity to unravel ordinary life. The figures in Lola’s work are reminiscent of Max Fleischer’s Popeye and Bimbo; grasping onto one another. You’re unsure whether they’re hugging, or holding one another back, almost mid-fight. Inspired by tattoos and seeking to blur the boundary between high and low-end art, Lola’s use of Popeye (one of the first cartoons to display working-class life) has evolved over time. Initially resembling gritty everyday existence, Popeye acts as both a self-portrait, parent or lover, often enveloping people and circumstances personal to Lola, both in relation to her upbringing, and her world now.
Like heaven and hellscapes, emotional turmoil and religious imagery appear in Lola’s paintings, as she thinks about putting herself, a lover, or a parent on a pedestal, with higher, devotional-like expectations. Influenced by Margate, ships and the sea are a recurring theme in her work; reflecting the fragility of mankind, and how there are so many elements to life we cannot control. Each painting has remnants of pool tables, pub scenes, ornamental railings and flowers, with use of Lola’s own poetry and words hidden among the abstract, instinctual, gestural marks.
Since graduating from Edinburgh College of Art (2019) and being selected for RSA New Contemporaries (2020), Lola has shown works locally and internationally, including Carl Freedman Gallery (2025) in Margate, after she completed The Tracey Emin Artist Residency (2024) and James Fuentes (2026) in New York.
Returning to Edinburgh has allowed my work to come full circle, and it’s an incredible opportunity to exhibit amongst other artists, including some that I was inspired by at University! Returning to Scotland can shed new inspiration on my work, looking at the location, Gothic architecture and drawing from old memories. It will be lovely to see the gallery again and meet up with old friends, and places.
