Lauren Yeats: Working Class Flair
February 20th, 2024
“Hi, I’m Lauren & I believe art should be accessible to everyone” - as manifestos go Lauren Yates (@lgystudio on TikTok] has her messaging down to a t. A creator who found their voice and audience online Lauren has caught attention for making prints and zines, with thousands watching as her mailorder Post Card Club “pops off”.
Proudly displaying working-class aesthetics, Lauren is part of a generation of artists who are eschewing traditional art commerce models and pushing for increased diversity in the space. Excited by the politics as much as the visual style, we caught up with Lauren to talk background, personal voice, and the possibility of reclaiming “Chav” aesthetics.
Public Offerings Ltd: Hi Lauren! First up, can you introduce yourself to our readers and how you would describe your art?
Lauren Yeats: I'm Lauren and I'm the artist behind LGY Studio. I love collage and photography so I've combined the two! My art is an eclectic collection of the world I see around me and my past experiences.
POL: You’ve placed your art as being intrinsic to you and your past experiences, something which you openly label as proudly working class - what do you think being working class means today? How does this impact your aesthetics and the work you create?
LY: Working class definitely means something different to everybody and it's constantly evolving. With the rise in working class being a 'cool' aesthetic, it can be really difficult to navigate, but for me, it's coming from a family of workers. People who have spent their lives working on the ground with not much to show for it. My family has so many fantastic stories and rich lives full of love, community, and memories but not one of us owns any property, has any savings, or any security blankets.
I try not to think about aesthetics when I make my work, I really am just capturing the world around me as it is.
POL: You are getting quite a following on TikTok with people signing up for your Post Card Club. Can you give us some more info about the project and how it came about?
LY: I've sold art prints before on Instagram, I've never had much success but it's what I love to do. Last August I decided just to go for it again, I tried TikTok this time and people seemed genuinely really interested in what I was doing. I released some prints after people had been asking but I only ended up selling one.
I had great feedback and an engaged audience but I just wasn't selling any prints. I wanted to buy all of my own prints, so I could advertise them, but I soon realised I couldn't even afford to buy my OWN art from the printers. It all clicked in my head and I realised that art prints aren't that affordable and it wasn't fair to ask my audience to pay £30 for a print when I couldn't afford that myself. It was around then I started thinking about how I could do this and make it affordable and accessible for the people supporting me online.
“It wasn't fair to ask my audience to pay £30 for a print when I couldn't afford that myself.”
POL: You’ve mentioned before that many of your fanbase and collectors are probably working class too. Does it add any pressure that their financial commitment to you is potentially more significant than others?
LY: Affordability is probably the second most important thing to me, behind actually making art. It's hard, because as artists you're told not to undervalue what you do, charge accordingly and you'll eventually find an audience that can afford what you do. But I already had my audience and I'm in the same demographic as them. I started to think about myself as a consumer and what I'd be happy to pay for art.
Art is often seen as a luxury item but I wanted to mix things up a little bit and start treating art as an everyday affordable item. I have thought about the financial commitment my customers are making to me and I try to make it as clear as possible that canceling is just one click away, there are no long-term commitments to subscribing to the club. I go out of my way to make it as cheap as physically possible and the more I grow, the more I'm able to provide for everybody as the cost of printing goes down.
POL: You’re open about the fact that you struggled to find your artistic voice, what advice would you give to other young working-class artists to help them with their creative journeys?
LY: My best piece of advice to young artists is to get off the internet and become inspired by YOUR world that you see every day. I spent so many years looking for inspiration online from people who didn't reflect myself or my worldview at all. You'll know you've found your voice when it comes naturally and you don't have to force creativity. Part of it definitely comes with age too, I'm 26 now and I'm a completely different person than when I was 21. Just have fun, enjoy the process and it'll come eventually.
“It's next to impossible for working-class kids to get their foot in the door so we have to create our own opportunities.”
POL: The traditional art world thrives on mystery and elitism, do you feel your work and your openness about how you make your pieces a political statement against the old-school industry? Do you feel a responsibility to educate others through your work?
LY: It wasn't a conscious decision to go completely against the grain of the industry norm, it just felt like my only option. I have no family in the industry. I live in Liverpool. I work full-time in retail, and I can't afford to do an unpaid internship in the industry… So it really felt like posting my whole journey and my process was the only way I could get my work out there. It's next to impossible for working-class kids to get their foot in the door so we have to create our own opportunities.
I've always been a really political person, I put that down to living on Tumblr in 2012, so I've always had a voice and wanted to tell stories with my art. So yeah, I do feel a sense of responsibility to educate and inform my audience but that comes from within myself. I don't think that all working-class artists and creatives should carry that burden though, we should be able to exist and make work just for the sake of it too.
POL: It’s great that you’re so open about your necessity to work other full and part-time jobs alongside being a creator. This is a reality for a lot of working artists, but something less commonly spoken about. How do balance your time and find space for creativity?
LY: This has been one of the struggles I've battled the longest, and I truly believe that it's taken me this long to get where I am with my art. I've had to work 40+ hours a week for the last 8 years. I worked all through university and my grades definitely were affected by this but you're not left with a choice when you can't afford to do all the same things as your friends, especially at a time when you're desperate to fit in.
Trying to find a drop of creativity when you worked 4 am-9 am and then attended university till 5 pm is near impossible. After graduation I didn't make art for years, I just didn't have the time or the mental capacity to even think about it. It was only when I went on holiday that I was inspired to make art again, I told myself I just had to live, breathe, and bleed art. Though I am privileged in that I live with my partner who helps me out around the house, I don't have any children and my working hours are flexible. If I had to work a 9-5 I truly don't think I'd be able to do what I do.
POL: The working class aesthetic in recent years has been appropriated by countless major fashion brands, celebrities, and artists - how do you feel about this? By using the term “Chav” in your latest zine, for example, are you looking to reclaim some of the pejorative language and visual aesthetics associated with working-class culture and imagery?
LY: God I could talk about this forever. The rise of popularity for working-class fashion is something that's never sat right with me. My first time really seeing it was my first year at university. I'd never really left my bubble in Liverpool so when I got to uni and I saw everybody in Fila trainers, tracksuits, and clothes that were a little bit ragged, I assumed we were all in the same tax bracket. It took less than 5 minutes of conversation to realise that most of these people were raised going skiing every year, they owned horses, and they were all part of social clubs where a lot of them seemed to know each other through their parents.
It was really strange to me, if you could afford nice clothes, why weren't you wearing them?
Working-class people save up months to buy a nice pair of shoes but these rich kids were spending £100's on Depop to dress the same as me in my sister’s hand-me-downs. And even with all of this, and them dressing the same as me, I was never treated as an equal because I had to dress this way. Whereas they chose to and would put their Ralph Lauren polos back on when they went home for the summer.
“I'm definitely trying to reclaim the visual aesthetics associated with being working-class because it's personal to me and my art is really personal.”
I'm definitely trying to reclaim the visual aesthetics associated with being working-class because it's personal to me and my art is really personal. I never thought that the house I grew up in and the clothes my mum put me in (that I hated at the time) would now be cool for the rich, it really rubs me the wrong way. Reclaiming language is really difficult and it's not a linear journey. As a lesbian woman, the community by and large has reclaimed 'queer' but it's not a word that's ever really sat right with me.
POL: If time and money were no object is there a project or an artwork you would love to make?
LY: I'd absolutely love to travel around the UK, visiting all the small working-class towns, taking photos, and speaking to the locals. I've always dreamed of creating a huge series of photographs and interviews from across the country. I think it would be really inspiring and motivational. I'm a huge introvert so speaking to people is my biggest challenge but in a dream world, that's what I'd love.
POL: What are you working on now? What’s Next?
LY: I've got my work going up in a few venues across Liverpool this summer, including John Moore’s university! I'm looking to get involved in a few community outreach programs too, I feel really passionate about teaching art to kids and under-represented communities.
About Lauren Yeats
Elizabeth Renstrom is the face behind LGY Studio. A Liverpool-based creative, Lauren makes art about the world around her. They believe art should be affordable and accessible to working-class people.
In love with film photography, she uses her photography to create intense collages that reflect her life growing up. By drawing inspiration from her own experiences, Lauren tries to find beauty and creativity in the mundane tasks in life.