Ingrid Evans is a Melbourne-born, Glasgow-based artist working in oil painting and collage. Her practice explores fragility, identity, and the tension between vulnerability and concealment. Beginning with staged photographs, she digitally edits and layers them to create soft, dreamlike compositions. These form the foundation of her paintings, where she uses translucent oil layers, softened edges, and blended subdued tones to evoke a hallucinatory atmosphere. Through symbolism, she explores the complexity of feminine identity, making visible the internal strategies of resistance and emotional self-protection. Her imagery draws influence from artists like Francesca Woodman and Hannah Höch, whose surreal and fragmented approaches embrace ambiguity and the unseen as forms of resistance. Working within a feminist lineage, Ingrid uses recurring motifs to explore how women protect their inner lives in response to pressures for visibility and performance. Softness and partiality become deliberate choices and acts of agency.

See Ingrid’s work as part of our annual Summer open call, Something in the Mirage, which runs July 17th to August 8th, featuring an incredible collection of works by twenty nine artists inspired by the dreamlike shimmering of summer sunshine, heat hazes, lingering afterimages, or maybe the momentary glint of something half-seen and half-imagined in the dappled golden light.

Hi Ingrid! Can you walk us through your creative process
My process usually begins with reflection: reading, writing, and looking at work that moves me. Journaling helps surface ideas or emotional threads I want to explore, which often shapes the direction of a piece. Photomontage plays a big role. I cut, blend, and layer images, digitally or by hand, until a composition feels right. For this series, I’ve been working on wooden panels rather than canvas. The smooth surface allows for finer detail and softer transitions, which works well with the themes of veiling and visual ambiguity.

Are there specific advantages or challenges associated with working in your chosen mediums? Have you experimented with other mediums or techniques?
The time it takes to work with oil paint is both an advantage and a challenge. I love how slowly the paint dries. It gives me room to change and adapt the work as I go. I can easily paint over mistakes and build upon them, which makes the process feel forgiving and fluid. There’s beauty in the process of watching indistinct blobs take shape into a face. However, that slowness can be frustrating. In the early stages, I often feel impatient, as the work can look terrible before it comes together and it’s hard not to rush to the end result. Still, I love that oil painting teaches me patience.

What challenges did you experience during the creation of your work and how did you overcome them?
This painting marks the beginning of a new series, and the style is quite different from my previous work, which leaned more towards traditional portraiture. During its creation, I had to let go of control and allow myself to experiment. I’ve been wanting to paint a blurred or obscured figure for a while, but I tend to be quite perfectionistic when it comes to facial features, so this shift required me to loosen up and embrace imperfection. Painting the veil layer was especially challenging, as it meant working over the top of the figure, and I was afraid I’d ruin the whole thing. Blending colours was also tricky. What looked right on the palette would shift completely on the canvas in context. But in the end, I had to trust my intuition and let my hand lead the way rather than overthinking every step.

Can you elaborate on the significance or symbolism of the chosen title of your work?
‘Opacity’ refers to the right to resist being fully seen or easily understood. The title speaks to the layers of perception in my work, both visually and emotionally. I feel that the work frames ambiguity not as a lack but rather as something powerful and dignified. 

What do you do to keep motivated and interested in your work?
I find new sources of inspiration, whether that’s going to a gig or performance, reading a book, visiting a gallery or connecting with other artists. If I’m feeling uninspired, it’s often because life has become a little mundane. Usually, it means I need to step outside of that and do something that brings me joy. When I’m struggling with my art, it’s often a sign that something else is off: I could be burnt out, overwhelmed, or not looking after myself properly. Art and life are deeply connected for me, so caring for one means caring for the other.

Will your next project be a continuation of your current style or are you experimenting with something different? Can you share a glimpse of your next project?
‘Opacity’ feels like a new beginning for me, marking the start of a new series. As someone still early in their practice, I’ve spent the past year building on my oil painting skills and falling in love with the medium. I was working quickly, producing portraits of those close to me. With this new series, I spend more time developing the vision before I begin, though the process still leaves space for intuition. There’s always a central idea holding the work together, but this series leans into a more surreal, dreamlike space. It’s a clear break from my earlier, more traditional portraits and has meant that I’ve had to go through a stage of unlearning – loosening up, stepping away from my perfectionistic approach. I’m letting go of being too literal or tied to the photo, letting intuition and instinct take over instead.  It feels more honest, almost like I’m giving space for my subconscious to speak. It’s opening new and unexpected possibilities in my work. 

Find out more about Ingrid’s work on Instagram. Something in the Mirage runs at Six Foot Gallery until August 8th 2025.