Lydia Wickham is a mixed media artist based in central Ohio whose work explores wonder, perception shifts, and the layering of materials. She experiments across media, often combining thread, vinyl, paint, photography, and discarded medical materials to create work that expresses how she inhabits her body.
Her work has been exhibited nationally in galleries, community spaces, and juried exhibitions, and she is the First Place (Professional Division) recipient of Art Possible Ohio’s traveling exhibition Accessible Expressions 2026. Recent exhibitions include a solo show at 934 Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, as well as group exhibitions at Bridgeport Art Center and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, and The Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio.
She is currently presenting Permeable Condition, a solo exhibition with Stonewall Columbus at Little Gay Bookstore, and has work included in RIGHTS of PASSAGE at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Statement
My work explores how perception is shaped and continually changing through embodied experience, particularly within the realities of chronic, unseen conditions. Living with chronic pain has made perception feel less like a stable lens and more like something constantly adjusted, something reshaped by discomfort, fatigue, and the need to keep moving through it. I am interested in how the body does not only experience reality, but actively alters how reality is understood.
Working across textiles, photography, painting, and mixed media, I use materials such as thread, vinyl, fiber, neon, and reflective surfaces to construct works that shift with light, movement, and proximity. These materials allow the work to behave like perception itself; something unstable, responsive, and dependent on position. I often incorporate photographic processes and medical materials left after appointments, placing documentation alongside materials associated with care, femininity, wonder, and touch.
My practice centers on the instability of perception, something that can feel both confining and liberating. What happens to bodies that fall between the cracks of healthcare systems, when they do not fit the boxes professionals are trained to see?
