British-born artist Rachel Lumsden creates primarily large-format figurative paintings characterised by intensely atmospheric, pictorial spaces. Her imagery coalesces on the canvas through a virtuoso handling of paint, evoking visual narratives that come unexpectedly close and yet cannot be entirely grasped.

In her book Igniting Penguins, Lumsden invites the reader on an entertaining excursion into the art world and to the core of painting itself. Along the way we are introduced to some of its powerful and quirky gatekeepers, we are baffled by art’s apparently unshakeable gender roles, and we discover what makes figurative painting the sexy form of quantum physics. Lumsden’s essay is both a personal manifesto and a survey of today’s art scene. It offers everything you ever wanted to know about painting and the art world but never dared to ask.