S A L T E D

Lesley Greening-Lassoff | Kristen Healy | Sheila Rennick | Rhys Trussler

Curated by Kristen Healy

G1 & G2 | 12 JULY - 30 AUGUST 2025

The Lido Stores is pleased to present “Salted”, bringing together four artists whose painterly works explore their relationship with the rich, complex tapestry of South-East Britain’s seaside.

Curated by Kristen Healy, this exhibition features paintings by Lesley Greening-Lassoff, Sheila Rennick, Rhys Trussler and Healy herself that navigate the sharp contrasts embodied by Britain’s coastal towns – from faded glamour and hedonistic escapism to sea-worn landscapes and understated beauty.

Each artist brings their own unique perspective on coastal life to bear, their impressions informed by personal memories and contemporary experiences, sometimes playing on the rich narratives that colour our perception of the British seaside town. The exhibition seeks to interrogate the complex cultural mythology of the coast, traversing the peeling facades of Victorian townhouses, the lure of neon-lit arcades and the edgy under-the-surface tension bubbling away at the height of summer in the towns where poverty, gentrification and tourism sit side-by-side in disharmony.

Lesley Greening-Lassoff lives and works very close to the East Sussex coastline. Her new paintings emerged from images and arrangements informed by photographs, drawings and memories, evolving through a process of layering, reworking and erasing. Her spare but complex depictions of shelters, coastal caravan sites, sea defences and seascapes invite close inspection and evoke ideas of place and memory – enigmatic but seldom nostalgic, her paintings take the viewer to the land’s end and ask them to consider ideas of refuge, shelter and what happens beyond the edge.

Kristen Healy's latest body of work focusses on Margate’s history as a thriving then dying seaside resort, alongside its current form as a cultural destination. Growing up in the 1990s opposite the dilapidated Lido where her father held a store, Kristen sought to leave Margate as soon as she could. Over the years she found more appreciation for the area, eventually returning with a young son and establishing a contemporary art gallery in the shop space that had previously served the disadvantaged Cliftonville community as an Off-Licence during the town’s nadir before lying dormant for a decade. These paintings capture snapshots from Margate’s glorious past alongside observations of the town's quiet beauty today.

Sheila Rennick’s works are characterised by thickly-applied oils and bursts of vibrant colour, their dark narratives often tempered by humour and hints of pathos. Her new works juxtapose recent summer holidays to Margate and Broadstairs with her young children and her own childhood memories of summers spent in Achill island, Ireland, in the late-1980s and ‘90s. Drawing from memory and found or taken images, Rennick muses on the themes of childhood memories, consumerism, nostalgia, identity and popular culture, considering the paradoxical disconnect between our notions of self and the often-unpleasant reality.

Rhys Trussler's practice draws on folklore, mythology and the horror genre. Rhys explores the liminality of environments in which a sense of "otherness" can exert itself. The characters in Rhys' paintings stem from personal narratives and a sense of queerness, creating a strange mirror reflecting a world in which humans haunt themselves. 

Please email The Lido Stores at thelidostores@gmail.com for a copy of the exhibition catalogue.