For our second work to be presented in the evolving online exhibition On Stillness with Newcastle Art Gallery, we have chosen NAS alum Fiona Lowry’s ​‘Gliding over all’. Lowry is known for her sensual and dreamy renderings of people and place, and for her contemporary approach to life-sized figure painting.

The title of Lowry’s work is taken from Walt Whitman’s poem Gliding O’er All, from Leaves of Grass (1855). A naked figure is either floating or falling in water or space. Lowry references the Pre-Raphaelite figure of Ophelia but instead of placing her horizontally, she subverts Ophelia’s sense of repose by placing her on a vertical axis, thus creating a sense of an awakening. We are also reminded of Christ on the cross – with arms held up and with a body hanging stiff and straight with closed eyes. This has a disquieting effect – the painting is full of vulnerability, suspense, gothic haze and romance.