Lucy Robson's 'How to Like It' Examines Feminine Desire at Southern Guild

Southern Guild Cape Town presents 'How to Like It', a solo exhibition of new oil-on-linen paintings by London-based artist Lucy Robson, running from 28 May to 9 July 2026. The works explore the psychic and cultural structures shaping romantic desire, featuring tightly cropped, emotionally charged scenes of intimacy. Robson draws on cinema, 90s fashion editorials, and art history, centering on a recurring blonde, blue-eyed subject to critique the voyeuristic gaze and inherited scripts of femininity. Motifs include flushed skin, off-frame male hands, and domestic interiors that oscillate between sanctuary and confinement. The exhibition title references instructional women's magazines and 'how to' culture, questioning how feminine desire is disciplined and performed. Robson cites cinematic melodramas like 'Far from Heaven' and figures such as Margaux Hemingway, alongside Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House', to highlight tensions between romanticized femininity and lived experience. The paintings present beauty as both invitation and trap, where polished surfaces give way to unease.