Elizabeth Cope’s Nest (Positive) and Nest (Negative) form a large diptych made using a cut-out process that she has developed over many years. The two canvases are directly connected: sections of Nest (Negative) have been cut from the surface and placed into Nest (Positive). Each painting depends on the other, one marked by what has been taken away, the other by what has been added. This exchange gives the pair a sense of movement and transformation, as if the paintings are in continuous dialogue.

The cut-out method brings a physical energy and humour to the work. The exposed edges of the canvas and the reinserted fragments create a surface that feels both handmade and alive. Across the two paintings appear recurring motifs that Cope has used and reused for decades: a lobster, a tape measure, a skeleton, and a tin of 3-in-1 oil. These images have travelled through her paintings for over fifty years, their original meanings now obscured. Their repetition and reconfiguration create a surreal menagerie within an otherwise mundane domestic setting.

The combination of these familiar objects with unexpected juxtapositions gives the diptych its distinctive tension. The works hover between the everyday and the fantastic, between memory and invention. In this way, Nest (Positive) and Nest (Negative) extend Cope’s ongoing interest in the cycles of making, unmaking, and remaking that define her practice, transforming ordinary materials and domestic life into something both strange and vital.