Curated by Lua Costa and featuring the work of artist Sol [also known as From The Ground, Up] "Within Decay" is an immersive exhibition inspired by the fluidity and interconnectedness of nature, focusing on the beauty of decay. Set in the heart of London’s urban landscape, this exhibition offers a retreat where visitors can pause, reflect, and reconnect with the natural rhythms often overlooked in the city’s fast-paced environment. The show delivers a multi-sensory experience, blending organic forms, tactile materials, and evocative soundscapes to capture the serenity of natural ecosystems, serving as a reminder of our intrinsic connection to the earth and the importance of ecological balance.

Currently in their final year of BA (Hons) Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, Sol draws inspiration from their tactile experiences in nature, particularly the act of gardening, to create deeply immersive artworks.

Private View: November 19th, 6pm-9pm
Exhibition Dates: Nov 19th - 24th

Side by Side: celebrating connections made by drawing

Much of an artist’s work and life is solitary. We are surrounded by a seemingly endless flow of information, ideas, images and influences. To do our own work, we have to find ways to filter these out and focus on our own imaginings and our individual vision. And yet …

We need and value what other artists can bring us: their way of seeing the world, their challenge to our views, their support for our continued endeavours and the sense that even when we are solitary, we are not alone.

This show brings together work by a group of HB Drawing artists and friends for whom drawing is a fundamental part of their practice. Their relationships have been created by studying, working and exhibiting together, building networks that extend across time and space.

Although we are scattered around the country, we are side by side with each other, looking out to the wider world, feeling inspired and supported by connections with others who are doing what we are doing, even when we are not together.

no format gallery has been a springboard for making some of these connections and strengthening others, so it is fitting that we have another chance to celebrate here together, before the gallery closes at the end of 2024.

Private View 3.00-6.00 pm Saturday16 November

Participating artists:

Rosalind Barker, Su Bonfanti, Camilla Brueton, Alison Carlier, Janine Hall, Aileen Harvey, Caroline Holt-Wilson, Arianna Tinulla Milesi, Sarah Praill, Ruth Richmond, Caragh Savage, Marianne Walker.

"With Love, Korea" is an art exhibition created by artist and author Mikey Espinosa. It serves as a love letter dedicated to the people and experiences he encountered during his many travels to Korea. The exhibition is divided into two parts: traditional and fusion.

The traditional part showcases his fine art training through paintings of his favorite locations, while the fusion part reflects the growing relationship between South Korea and the United Kingdom. It is hoped that this exhibition will generate more interest and opportunities for Asian culture and artists to be showcased.

The opening event will be on October 25, 2024, and will be open to the public from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The exhibition will continue daily until October 31, from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Finding\Form

Private View - Wednesday 25th September, 6-9pm. All welcome. 

Open daily 12-6pm - 24.09.24 - 29.09.24

Meet the artists with drinks Saturday 28th, 2-5pm

We all work in different ways but are all interested in exploring the dynamic interplay between the intuitive/spontaneous gestures and interaction with materials and the more intentional planned aspects of making work. I think we’ve bought together a really exciting collection of paintings!

Curated by Sara Breinlinger and Stephen Keane

Artists 

Sara Breinlinger

Dan Broughton

Katya Derksen

Stephen Keane

Johanna Melvin

Julian Scott

Gesture has always been present in painting as an inevitable consequence of the process of painting itself. Paint placed on a surface retains evidence of the method of its application. With the advent of non-representational or “abstract” painting, artists began to understand that the mark and the gesture could carry meaning in their own right and, in so doing, become their own subject matter.

This raises other issues, of course. Perhaps the notion of the abstract expressionist gesture as emotion, passion, or expression now seems like only one possibility, and one to which we may no longer aspire. Contemporary abstract painting often takes a more provisional, less absolute, negotiated position between intention and chance, improvisation and planning, and even success and failure. It is this dichotomy that we will explore in this exhibition.

The show reflects ongoing conversations about these issues and explores possibilities in abstraction related to the ways in which gestures or marks become meaning. To this end, the artists, through expressive gestural abstraction or more hard-edged works, playfully subvert traditional conventions and explore the dynamic interplay between the intuitive/spontaneous and the planned/designed. Individual works might arise from a spontaneous interaction with materials and surface, only to develop intention as they evolve, or the exact opposite might be the case, where a plan is subverted by impulse and instinct. Often, a painting will iterate between both of these.

no format gallery

Casting house, Moulding Lane, (Off Arklow Road), London SE14 6BN

Nearest Stations (New Cross / New Cross Gate and Deptford)

You are warmly invited to join us for our inaugural Textiles Open, adding to our series of Opens that have been enjoyed by so many artists and observers over the last eight years. This Open explores all interpretations of a textiles based practice over three size formats. All submissions are accepted and celebrated as they are what the artist has chosen to exhibit.

Preview: Thursday 18th of July 6-9pm

Opening Times

Week One: 19th – 21st July 12-6pm

Week Two: 25th – 28th July 12-6pm

www.secondfloor.co.uk/textiles-open

Universal Thread

Universal Thread explores the fundamental and fragile nature of our sense of self, place and time in the world we inhabit.   The works on show are rooted in the use of materials which speak to the elemental building blocks of the Universe and life itself: carbon, graphite, silica, water, hydrogen and oxygen.  The muted colour pallet allows for the viewer’s experience to centre on the play of light, form and tactility.   The works are united by the tension between yearning to establish a kind of permanence whilst knowing and accepting impermanence.

Michelle Di Leo’s series of graphite drawings started life as a single very large-scale drawing, which she has later cut into multiple pieces which completely fractures and alters the way they speak to each other and how we read them.  This breakage reactivates the connection between the work, the artist and the viewer.  Deeply embedded in the drawings are references to space time and gravity, the enormity of which forms the structure of existence.

Shaowei Lai’s ceramics show a fascination with the slowing down of time that making them requires.   Their existence becomes a very fragile permanence.   Their deceptive form as vessels intertwined with thread signifies a strong sense of containment.  Alongside her thread drawings, the overarching feeling is one of the complexity of what it means to be human in our Universe.

20th June - Preview 6.30 - 8.30pm

Open:

Sat/Sun 22/23 June - 10am -5pm

Sat/Sun 29/30 June - 10am -5pm

Sat/Sun 6/7 July  10am - 5pm (with celebratory wine/music in the afternoon of Sunday 7th July to close)

Michelle Di Leo (@michelledileo)

Michelle Di Leo (b.1970, London) creates work based on a fascination with absence and presence, memory and time, often explored in liminal spaces which defy categorisation.

Michelle’s practice often begins with drawing and photography where she is drawn to the half-seen shadow, what is there but at the same time not there.  She uses a range of mediums and materials to develop her exploration of these starting points.  Her work deftly demonstrates an interplay between light and shadow to create form and atmosphere.  Her work is informed by her interest in theories about the origin and nature of the Universe and our place in it.

Michelle graduated with an BA (Hons) in Philosophy with English Literature in 1992 from the University of Kent at Canterbury.    In 1993 she achieved a Masters (with Distinction) in Government and Politics from London Guildhall University.   She spent nearly 30 years in strategic communications running creative campaigns and providing senior counsel to a wide range of businesses and organisations. In 2021 she shifted her focus to developing her art practice.  She gained a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design (with Distinction) in 2022.  She completed the first year of a Fine Art (Drawing) BA in 2023 at UAL Camberwell and intends to return to complete her BA after a break to focus on her studio practice.   This year she attended the Drawing Intensive course at the Royal Drawing School to continue to develop and broaden her practice.  She has exhibited in several group shows in the last three years including ‘There Yet’ at Downstairs, Brixton, London, 2022; ‘Before Now, After Then’, Bargehouse Gallery, Oxo Tower Wharf, London, 2023, SFSA Painting Open, 2023, SFSA Drawing Open 2024.   Michelle lives and works in Blackheath, South East London.

Shaowei Lai (@shaowei_art)

Shaowei Lai (b. 1980, Shen Zhen, China) explores and makes sense of life through the process of creating.  She employs different techniques and materials in her practice such as painting, drawing and sculpting, using cotton thread, paper, clay and other found objects in her work.  She allows her intuition to guide her choice of medium as a starting point, then reflects and learns through the making process.  The thoughts and ideas that go through her mind during the making and the final artwork itself inform her the direction of further research.  This process continues, allowing her art to evolve and enrich.

Shaowei graduated with BA (Hons) in Finance in 2003 from London School of Economics and Political Science and MSc in Investment Management in 2004 from Bayes Business School.  She worked in the financial sector since graduation.  In 2019, after becoming a mother of her two young children, she was inspired to pursue art which has always been her long-term passion.  She started undertaking the Artelier Conservatoire course in Blackheath and subsequently gained a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design in CityLit in 2022.  She is currently studying BA in Fine Art Drawing at UAL Camberwell College of Art to further develop her practice.

Shaowei has been actively engaged in community collaborative art projects such as ‘Drawing in Social Space’ project in 2022 and ‘The Room of Unpredictable Drawing’ project in 2023 with Drawing Room London.  Her work was displayed in the ‘Drawing in Social Space’ exhibition in Drawing Room in 2023. She was also selected to be one of the participating artists performing live portraits for South London Gallery ‘Who’s On It’ community event in 2023.  Additional selection of Shaowei’s recent group exhibitions includes ‘There Yet’, Downstairs Gallery, Brixton, London, 2022; ‘Before Now, After Then’, Bargehouse Gallery, Oxo Tower Wharf, London, 2023; Art Hub Studios, Deptford, London 2023; UAL Camberwell College of Art Gallery Space, London, 2023; Copeland Gallery, Peckham, London, 2024.

Shaowei lives and works in Greenwich, South East London.

Together and Apart

Goldsmiths’ MA Art & Politics presents ‘Together and Apart’: an interdisciplinary group exhibition exploring themes of relationality. Working from diverse perspectives, we seek to examine where we stand in relation to one another and the worlds we encounter. We want to ask: how are we together, how are we apart? Furthermore, how do we navigate our relations in the shifting terrains of the public, private, and personal?

Our works explore a range of themes, from global economies of extraction to localised circuits of exchange, from collective unionisation to the processes of subjectivisation. The exhibition considers site from a critical perspective where both artistic and political encounters can occur. Our works also aim to function both within and beyond the gallery space, drawing connections with wider public struggles and processes of solidarity.

'Together and Apart' brings together 10 artists, whose work will range from video installations, sound work, participatory sculptures, to wall and floor-based pieces.

SFSA is committed to delivering high-quality, long-term studios. In 2019, the Foundry was opened—a site acquired by SFSA to preserve workspace for artists and makers in London for the next six generations.

Spring 2024 marks five years since the opening of the largest bespoke studio project in zone two in over a decade. Both the Foundry and our smaller site, Foreshore, host vibrant communities of visual artists, craft and designer makers, and once a year, they invite the public, local community, friends, and family to explore the diverse range of practitioners (over 100 individuals). Everyone welcone, Free entry and refreshments.

SFSA has a longstanding tradition of inclusivity, providing opportunities to artists of all backgrounds. In 2024, we're proud to host the 5th annual SFSA Drawing Open, a lively celebration of drawing in all its forms. There's no judging panel; instead, each artist showcases their work, resulting in a vibrant display that captures the diverse range of drawing styles in a moment in time. no format Gallery welcomes you. #SFSADrawingOpen

Illusionary Echoes: Between Fragility and Force

"Illusionary Echoes: Between Fragility and Force" is an immersive exploration of the delicate interplay between vulnerability and strength, beauty and aggression, harmony and conflict. It navigates the myriad ways in which human actions and preferences sculpt the natural world, unfolding across a spectrum of mediums such as painting, paper cutting, 3D printing, and installations. Through diverse perspectives, the artists propose a reconsideration of our relationship with nature, shedding light on the impact of human interaction on the environment.

This exhibition invites viewers to reconsider their perceptions of reality and to rediscover the beauty and fragility of nature as shaped by human civilization. From the delicate intricacies of nature to the nuanced interactions between humans and their surroundings, each artwork challenges conventional boundaries, sparking introspection and reflection. The works in this exhibit feature a range of media and drawing techniques. Various types of metal, paper, canvas, silk, fabric, acrylic, resin, Chinese pigments, and ink are all explored.

Artists: Bora Shim, Jiwoo Kim, Mengwei Chen, Yan Wu

Bora Shim (@borabora_rt)

Bora Shim is a Seoul and London-based artist engaging with nature in modern society and dismissing objects in nature and daily life. The artist explores irregular forms within the fabricated nature of the city and discovers her longing for 'authentic' nature. Her interests in dismissed objects within the patterned and structured artificial nature construct the space with various mediums. Experiencing London occupied by around 3000 gardens, which is equivalent of the amount of one-fifth of London's total area, the artist finds herself drawn to the familiarity and enchantment of greenery. However, a sense of repulsion against excessive grooming and artificiality of parks and gardens becomes a motive of artworks. Her interest in what she identifies as 'vanishing' or 'vanished' elements in nature and her perspective towards them work as the subjects of her work. She explores the intersection of her interest in damaged surroundings with the aesthetic interests of people in the Romantic era's architectural ruins in 18th-century Britain. Furthermore, she delves into the role of parks as political symbols and meaning in British landscape history and the inseparable relationship between pure art and them, expressing it in space.

Jiwoo Kim (@waslukewarm)

Based in London, Jiwoo Kim explores the ideas of subjects and objects and strives to break free from the usual boundaries separating art and design. Her focus on this discourse reflects broader efforts to dismantle established limitations. Ultimately, Kim aims to shift away from the idea of a fixed self or object, emphasizing instead the dynamic interaction and evolution of various modes of truth. She seeks to redefine the concept of the subject, viewing it as a structure of diverse influences rather than a predetermined starting point.Kim's work serves as a visual expression of complex interaction at the intersection of art and design. It also highlights my willingness to challenge conventional boundaries and embrace a more dynamic perspective.

Mengwei Chen (@touyeye_yeyetou)

Mengwei Chen’s artistic expression is deeply shaped by 1970s and 1980s horror films, literature, and manga. Additionally, she has been drawing inspiration from Chinese occult and mystery traditions, funerary culture, and folk sorcery rituals, endeavoring to recreate these fading cultural forms and infuse folklore elements into her new works. Currently, her focus is on creating mixed-media pieces that blend paper cutting, sculpture, comics, and painting.

Yan Wu (@yanwufineart)

Yan Wu, born in Beijing, China, and currently residing and studying in London, is a multifaceted artist pursuing an MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London. Yan Wu's artistic practice intertwines traditional mediums such as ink, color, silk, and rice paper with contemporary themes, creating a captivating narrative that transcends temporal and cultural boundaries. Drawing inspiration from classical Chinese bird and flower paintings, she imbues her works with symbolic imagery that delves into the intricate relationship between humanity and the natural world. Through her meticulous brushwork and evocative compositions, Yan addresses pressing issues such as environmental crisis and feminism, prompting viewers to contemplate the complexities of modern existence. She adeptly navigates between historical traditions and contemporary perspectives, employing a modern optical lens to recontextualize and feminize her subjects, thereby inviting audiences to reconsider their significance in today's global landscape.

‘CHEAP LABOUR’ was shaped by a recent trip to Argentina which illustrated the realities of life within a country experiencing an annual inflation rate rise that has hit it’s highest level since 1991, stoking a painful cost-of living crisis and pushing poverty levels past 40% in the South American County.

This is by no means limited to Argentina with cost-of- living crisis’s affecting the U.K, energy and food price hikes across Europe and high profile labour disputes in both England and America, thus seemingly pointing to an inflection point in terms of labour and wealth distribution and a societal questioning of systems of hierarchy.

‘CHEAP LABOUR’ features works economically produced with found or waste materials, works that have an inherent collapse or instability built into them and works that challenge embedded value systems or ways of production.

The exhibition will also act as a cultural exchange, with curator Leo Babsky bringing the work of five Argentinian artists to London (Guillermina Baiguera, Santiago Delfino, Sofía Donovan, Iván Enquin and Luciana Rondolini) to exhibit alongside Paul Emmanuel (UK), Jessie Henson (USA), Holly Hooper (UK) and James Lomax (UK).

Artists:

Guillermina Baiguera (Argentina), Santiago Delfino (Argentina), Sofía Donovan (Argentina), Paul Emmanuel (UK), Iván Enquin (Argentina), Jessie Henson (USA), Holly Hooper (UK), James Lomax (UK) & Luciana Rondolini (Argentina)

Private View; 14th March 6 - 8pm.

Exhibition runs until April 6th.

Opening hours; Wed - Friday 11 - 6pm, Sat 12 - 5pm.

STRUCTURAL DAMAGE

Structural Damage is an architectural terminology to indicate a flaw in the integrity of a building, caused by weather, poor planning, lack of maintenance, or deliberate action.

Works in this exhibition adopt the above expression to indicate their response to these fractures in the material structures and immaterial systems we interact with on a daily basis.

Artists in Structural Damage seek to find agency in exploiting the fissures that they confront in their experience, either interrogating, exploding, inhabiting or exposing these faults.

Artists:

ZOMMER

I’m for truth, no matter who told it. I’m for justice, no matter who promoted it. I’m an anarchist, any type of anarchist. I spent 3 years making a lot of work in response to a protest that happened 12 years ago, when people in China took to the streets against the expansion of a large local refinery. Archives, publications, moving images, sculptures, maps... I've done everything I can do to make the protest visible. Now I've got all these documents on one website. It's more like a journey. Unfortunately, nothing has changed because of my work.

GIULIA FASSONE

In the era of Techno-feudalism, what is being harvested and who gets to consume it? A peek into Giulia Fassone’s tools cabinet reveals a bizarre collection of loaded objects: a hammer, a sickle, a scythe, a dildo – among others. These ceramic ‘tools’ draw a historical and conceptual parallel between the proto-capitalism of the Middle Ages and the contemporary idea of Techno-feudalism.

What are the current trajectories and intersections between labour, leisure, luxury and pleasure? What is their currency? Through the restitution of materiality to an increasingly abstract and immaterial world, these Tools pose a need to bring agency back in everyone’s hands.

LOUIS O’CONNOR

Tied to the land, the farmer and the farmed play out the cyclical monotony of the harvest. Lives entwine through the twist of barbed wire and the bramble of hedgerow.

This painting presented by Louis O’Connor explores the relational oddities of agricultural life, assessing the assumed dynamics of labour and control.

XIQI ZHU

Inspired by a childhood immersed in science fiction novels, Xiqi Zhu developed a keen interest in science fiction elements such as cyborgs.

Sound, light and interactive installations often enhance the sensory experience. The artist believes that using these elements can enhance the audience's experience and make the work more contemporary. By fusing installation art, soundscapes and dynamic light displays, Xiqi Zhu weaves a subtle narrative of human-machine fusion.

VIRAJ ANAND

Perfectly symmetrical in its construction, 6 sides, 12 edges, and 8 vertices: a single unit of inhabitation, endlessly tessellated and infinitely elastic. A 2 dimensional landscape. An invisible mould, sculpted by light creeping through its apertures. Exterior, night; interior, light.These paintings and relief prints explore the philosophical implications of designing urban life, tethering between geometric languages and organic bloom. Through these contorted perspectives and an obsession with mathematical repeatability, Viraj Anand suggests that there is a potential to locate a liminal space in the units of contemporary houses which can be stretched towards different forms of inhabitation.

ERIN GALLAGHER

Emergency blankets are first aid devices that offer warmth to bodies in trauma. Beyond survival, trauma lives on in the body of those who experienced it. Its ramifications ripple throughout life, like the fragile fabric of this installation ripples when bodies move across it. This work brings attention to the repercussions of trauma on those who are most vulnerable, particularly children. Our world is in a state of emergency, the fractures felt and expanding.

WAN-TING HSU

How does it feel to be in a crowded urban environment?

The artist Wan-Ting Hsu intends to construct an imaginary world from personal experiences while living in a foreign urban city through large-scale drawings, recorded sounds, and videos.

SAMMY TSENG

Sammy Tseng’s exhibition carves out a space in the larger exhibition of Structural Damage, to explore the complex power dynamics in the interactions and conflicts of East Asian couples in a family matrix. Through artistic works, the exhibition examines the issues surrounding different family roles in East Asia and investigates the impact of gender roles and societal expectations on family relationships. This exhibition asks; how is mental, emotional and physical labor designated in East Asian households?

Expanded Bodies

“If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom. In our bodies that we accept or end our slavery.” Ursula Le Guin (Four Ways to Forgiveness, 1995) Outer space, Earth, land, home, body.

Expanded Bodies explores corporeality and its relation to the environments we inhabit, through play, posthuman worldbuilding, relationships to home, land, pain and freedom.

It constructs a material landscape of ceramics, sound, painting, installation, and video, producing alternative encounters with the environment to suggest a different relationship to our bodies, and the notion of the self.

BIOS

*Maia Lonergan*

Maia is exploring the profound impact of toys and play on the socialisation of children through animation and sculpture. She wants to dissect societal biases and challenge these preconceived notions, particularly within the realm of ADHD. I want to unravel the boxes imposed on individuals with different brain types, offering a unique perspective on the intersection of neurodiversity, and the power of play that places a child in a role as creator. Drawing inspiration from dreams and nightmares, as well as from children’s toys and stories. Pondering on the climate crisis and the need for neurodiverse ways of thinking and empathy when uniting in the face of planetary destruction.

Instagram @maimaielyy

*Anna Usadi*

Through imaginings of speculative futures, Anna Usadi’s work aims to prompt reflection on our reality. Deeply concerned with human-induced ecological and geological trauma, her practice interrogates ideas such as units of time, progress and gender as social constructs, and explores their effects on people and the planet. In this exhibition, Usadi employs sculpture, moving image and sound to imagine how a decentralised and disembodied artificial intelligence might question notions of the body and the individual.

Instagram - @annausadi

*Ana Carolina Vidal Alves *

Anna is a Brazilian visual artist, educator and researcher whose central axes are race and gender, Afro-Atlantic connections and Brazilian popular cultures. She mostly works in oil paint, ceramics and installation constructing a language that orbits on female regeneration, identity, dysmorphia, violence, trauma and demarcations of the body’s limits. In the present work, Vidalinvestigates identity and seeks to record and create links between collective, family and individual memories on spiritual heritage, legacy and fertility.

*Gabriela Lehmann Rodriguez*

Through animation, comics, manga, and other forms of narrative art, Gabriela Lehmann Rodriguez explores the formulation of identity and memory through satirical, comedic, and provocative approaches. Utilizing illustration and video in this exhibition, she seeks to critique marketing and social bias, visibility, memory, and identity construction through visual storytelling, character creation, and merchandising.

Instagram - @aximilya

*Evolene Xiaohua*

Evolene is a middle-aged artist and a wanderer who has uprooted herself twice: first from China, then from the USA to the UK. As a life-long outsider, her work looks at human otherness, alienation and the possibility of integration to a unified Bio-universe. Her works are marked by an ambiguous, dichotomous and poetic style as a result of being sensitive and curious to the materials she engages with. She works with oil, acrylic, watercolor, charcoal, leather, steel, printmaking and words. Her art practice involved an interplay between sculpture and painting. She introduces abstract and expressive elements into sculpture and then transforms structural elements into painting. She is developing her own metaphysical symbols and text to shed light on the postmodern concern and challeng: ‘the unrepresentable.”

Instagram: evolene9

*Yujin Ha*

Yujin aims to liberate women's bodies from the patriarchal gaze through a feminist lens, navigating between subject and object, passivity and activity, in the realms of space and body. Her work continuously questions how women, living as 'housewives' within the domestic space, experience oppression and liberation, drawing from her upbringing in Korean society and research on her family and mother. Through the integration of Eastern philosophy and Korean shamanistic elements, Yujin represents the overlapping realities and memories of herself and her mother, creating fictional events in physical spaces using installation, sculpture, photography, digital collage, and sound.

Instagram- @uyzynh

* Kristianna Betta*

Kristianna is interested in the liberation of the female form. Her paintings explores female nudity paying attention to themes of beauty, desire and essence. Beta’s art provides a critique of female objectification in art. Her paintings make commentary (sometimes through sarcasm) on notions of the male gaze, putting into questions ideals of beauty.

Instagram: @Kris_Betta_

*Leena Al-Nasser*

Leena’s art is about awakening the lost Queendom of her planet and rewatering it anew. She is interested in excavating sacred lost and buried material and bringing it to life. Her work plays with what is hidden and what is revealed and can involve participatory elements that require both time and vulnerability from the viewer. Some layers are available to all viewers, but other layers are only available to ones who are willing to give back. She uses writing, painting, collage, installation, and performance.

@Mnzlee

*Louisa*

Louisa is an intermodal artist who uses performative sound assemblages, in real time, as a response to an increasingly digital world. Vibration, Sound and Voice are set alongside home-made, organic, repurposed materials and unique substrates to create immersive cave like soundscapes and echo chambers. These ephemeral spaces are inhabited by incorporeal beings and colourful rhizomatic creatures. Her current work titled “The Ocarina of Thyme/Tears of the Kingdom,” is a graphic score guiding the viewer-avatar through sound, language and story to a fictional biosphere where hidden and displaced voices will ultimately be revealed.

Abstract

A threshold is the strip of stones that forms the bottom of a doorway. It is the space that demarcates a transition between inside and outside. Poised on this threshold you are situated in the liminal space of potential, of becoming.

A threshold is the string to a kite. It is the tension between the imagined or perceived freedom when it flies in the sky, and the actual constraints placed by its holder.

Artists in Threshold explore the transitory spaces between physical and imagined, body and society, psyche and landscape.

Enhe Zhu

Enhe Zhu's practise explores the threshold between the worlds of the dead and the living by presenting Chinese traditional ceremony scenes. This installation references “祭祖”, which is a ceremony to welcome ancestors through food offerings and burning ingots, candles and incense. Green is a symbolic color in Chinese horror movies and suggests a liminal or surreal space between imagination, the present and the past. Zhu works with a variety of materials and methods, from casting to wax working. Wax is understood by Zhu as a plastic material that acts as a medium between the worlds of life and death.

Mia Grassie-Clarke

Mia is exploring the bounds of the canvas as well as the action of painting as a way to re-frame expressions of the female body. The use of unconventional stretching methods along with expressive painting and sculpture elements show the ways in which both the artist and the viewer can embody a painting in multiple dimensions. Looking outwards to a door frame and inwards to the bones you can see layers of critical thinking about the space and mark making. Through a varied use of material she is exploring the viscerality of the every day from a feminine gaze.

Freesia Tianyue Pi

At the centre of my work lies an examination on various materials and media to embody spatial and cultural experiences through rebuilding fragmented memories. By combining painting, ceramic and textile, I condense the sensory experiences into new narratives. My installations collapse and reform domestic objects and imagery into an exhibition space, where I dissolve the threshold between art and domestic ornament.

Jingxi Yang

No matter where I am, no matter how far away from home, I am always a kite blowing in the wind. Tethered to my distant home by its string, the kite is always leading my thoughts back home. Red boats act as my diary, keeping the days I am away from China. This timekeeping is assembled into a red river and encapsulates a longing lonely mood, as these boats face towards my hometown. Constructed out of rice paper, bamboo, string and oil paint, my kite is a homing pigeon which echoes the delicate emotion of reminiscing about my hometown and a desire to return to childhood.

Cecily Lasnet

Cecily Lasnet’s practice is developing as one of close reading, listening and looking where she records the spaces of her own lyrical subjectivity. Dealing with the pain of moving through time and further from something loved and lost, her practice incorporates drawing, writing and bookmaking as mediums for recording moments in time, and time passing between moments. Cecily is showing a publication displayed as a series of prints whose genesis is in writing. Each print, built of layers of colour and translucency maps out a passing room of emotion.

Pengyi Li

Pengyi Li is a curator and writer whose practice focuses on the cross-contextual presentation of historical artifacts, video archives and geopolitics, to address the complex issues of displacement and identity. In curating this exhibition within an exhibition, Flesh and Blood: The Texture of Culture, Li explores the perspectives of artists Michalis Karaiskos, Ellie Pearch, and Fi Isidore. Through this process, he pays particular attention to the close connection between individual identity and collective memory. He aims to reveal the multiple dimensions of the body as a bearer of cultural and personal meaning, as well as its complexity in the context of post-colonialism and globalization.

Xin Huang

In Chongqing, a city in southwest China, people repurpose and navigate the negative spaces produced by urban infrastructures. Lingering in the air above and beneath their feet is a mist imbued with the scents of mountains and rivers. My work is concerned with the aesthetics of urban human lives and the buildings that they inhabit, grounded in the intersection of infrastructure and nature. Through sculptural forms, I recombine building and industrially processed materials to present a sense of abandoned urban environments and the instability of the humans that inhabit them.

Ella Deregowska

Pushing beyond the spatial constraints of the sketchbook: the pencil translates the artist’s body, the gallery walls and floor, the page. Through intuitive use of crayons, tape and charcoal, the ‘gallery as sketchbook’ is mapped. Activated to resolve the feeling of overwhelm as a result of sensory overstimulation and the conflicting information that dictates contemporary life, the artist pushes movement and drawing as acts of self care. What remains is a performative recording, a three-dimensional drawing that documents a psychogeography of this cognitive dissonance.

Sonographies 
2-4 & 9-11 February 2024
12-5pm  

Concealed in near silence, the sound installation Sonographies explores hidden and intimate spaces of experience. An eight-channel composition sounds physically in the gallery space but above the range of human hearing. Unstable and sensitive to movements of the body, an alternate acoustic landscape is revealed to individual listeners wearing wireless headphones created specially for the work. Sonographies is an invitation to dwell in sound, to probe space with your listening, and to notice how your body meets with sound and space. The composition slowly unfolds as though a journey through imagined, interconnected rooms. Drawing on themes of interior and domestic space, miniature and barely audible sounds of the home expand into the gallery space as immersive, sonic landscapes comprising field recordings, instrumental tones, and synthesised layers.

Sonographies is the culmination of a creative residency at no format gallery and is inextricably site-specific, incorporating the acoustic and architectural features of the space. The installation has been developed in different iterative versions as part of PhD research examining the experience of listening to spatial sound art. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to participate in the research by completing a short online survey following their encounter with the work.

Sonographies is created by Nicole Robson with curatorial support from Eva Martinez and is supervised by Prof. Andrew McPherson and Prof. Nick Bryan-Kinns. The work is supported by the EPSRC grant EP/L01632X/1 (Centre for Doctoral Training in Media and Arts Technology at Queen Mary University of London) and by the Royal Academy of Engineering under the Research Chairs and Senior Research Fellowships scheme.

Nicole Robson (b. 1987) is a sound artist and PhD researcher in Media and Arts Technology at Queen Mary University of London. Her work, presented internationally, includes installation art, musical composition, performance, and academic publications. She is interested in the performative and relational character of listening, how sound is co-produced by our bodily and perceptual activities, and research methods for describing lived experience. Nicole’s practice includes public art commissions (NHS, Mayor of London, Museum of London), which draw together oral histories and site-specific, community-led musical composition; harnessing sounding and listening as a means of social action. As a classically trained cellist and multi-instrumentalist, Nicole is an experienced performer and has played at concert halls and music festivals around the world, on television programmes such as Later... with Jools Holland, and live for BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, and 6 Music.

nicolerobson.com. 

"Shaping: Metalsmiths Dual Dialogue" unites two artists inspired by Deptford's metalworking heritage, crafting captivating narratives through metal and found objects. Huang, influenced by Taoist philosophy, molds metal into varied forms, evoking the essence of time. Xu delves into metal's emotional resonance, capturing scars and marks symbolizing conflicts. Transcending time, their artworks invite reflection on metal's profound significance and intertwine local heritage with contemporary expression. Join this harmonious yet contrasting artistic dialogue, exploring the multifaceted nature of metal.

About the Artists:

Xuemei Huang (b.1984, China) conveys her understanding of life, her interpretation of philosophy from life experience in her art works using unlimited materials. She got her B. Engineering degree in Food Science and Engineering from China Agricultural University in 2005 and worked as a Customs officer after graduation until 2021 when she enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Art programme in Goldsmiths. In her recent study in MFA in Fine Art, Goldsmiths, she primarily explores her engagement with Taoist philosophy through painting and metal sculpture, delving into concepts such as the formless nature of the Tao, the contrasting elements of material emptiness and substance, and the concept of usefulness in uselessness.

Dengqian Xu (b.1998, China) graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2022. He is currently studying at Goldsmiths MFA fine art programme. Xu's work encompasses a wide range of forms, with performance, installation and sculpture as the main means of expressing his inner feelings. Violence is one of the main elements in his work, and his performances are explosive and dangerous, resisting the absurdity of the world through some of the more absurd performances.

For millennia the circle was taken as the primary symbol of perfection; the signifier of eternal and unchanging order - with the Sky as its natural abode; where its inhabitants the Sun, the Moon and the Planets, were all believed to be eternally moving on circular orbits. Historically, it took enormous courage to conceptually Break the Circle by trusting the observations that showed all such presumed circles in the Sky to be in fact ellipses. This was specially brave given that such orbits often deviate from circularity almost imperceptibly.

This project explores the metaphor of Breaking the Circle aesthetically and conceptually, with the help of graphics, videos, sculptural pieces and texts.

About the Artist: Reza Tavakol is professor emeritus of mathematics and astronomy, and a member of the poetry group, at Queen Mary University of London. His current interests include art, philosophy and cosmology. His art practice is concerned with the aesthetic and conceptual explorations of the real, employing writing, as well various visual art forms including photography, graphics, moving image and installations.  

Tues-Sun 8-18 August 2023. Opening times: Tues 8 - Sun 13 2-7pm, Tues 15 - Fri 18 2-6pm

Private View, Tues 8 August 6-9pm

Who We Really A.R. 

An Augmented Reality Art Exhibition about P.D.A.

1st - 6th August 2023 

Free entry. Open 13:00-19:00 daily.

Private view: Thursday 3rd August, 6-9pm (limited tickets) Book via Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/who-we-really-ar-augmented-reality-art-exhibition-tickets-672967512947

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” - Maya Angelou (American poet)

The expression of love has been stated by poets, songwriters and countless other artists, to be of utmost importance to us as human beings. There are those of us who feel fine expressing our affections publicly, as well as those of us who prefer to keep it private, depending on the culture, context or even our personal safety.

Who We Really A.R. is a series of augmented reality (AR) artworks, illustrating the real life diversity, complexity and simplicity of our relationships through P.D.A. (public displays of affection). #WWRAR #PDA

Using a mix of comic book illustration, animation and AR technology, the artist explores the real life world of PDA, the perceptions of what relationships look like, and highlights the role of the observer. Ultimately, it hopes to illustrate the joy and fun of love, and how it very much “recognises no barriers”, including LGBTQ+, interracial, extramarital, cultural and religious themes.

About the Artist: voxie is an illustrator & animator born in South London. She is British Filipina, identifies as queer (she/they) and loves art and digital technology. She created this augmented reality project as part of MA Illustration (online) at the University of Hertfordshire. After working most of her life as a graphic designer, almost 20 years later, she returns to the art world through this MA. This would be her first solo exhibition. Her art is inspired by a combination of comics, manga, vintage graphics and 80s cartoons. Artist website: www.voxie.art or @voxieart on social media.

In 1997 Psychotherapist and author of the book 'Trauma and Recovery' Judith Herman described Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as nothing but a "sophisticated insult" from psychiatry towards people who have experienced trauma. Almost 30 years later despite decades of survivor led activism and countless research papers showing that a diagnosis of personality disorder results in stigma, discrimination and poor treatment, the diagnosis is still hotly debated by psychiatry but with no real systemic change.

Sophisticated Insult is an exhibition which centres the experiences of people who have been given a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder either as a current or past diagnosis, who reject the personality disorder construct.

While we recognise some people may find a BPD diagnosis helpful, there are many of us who have been harmed by the diagnosis. Our exhibition is a creative space to explore and celebrate survival, inner fires, love, rage, solidarity and defiance against the pathologisation of trauma. We are not anti-diagnosis but believe people should not be labelled with diagnoses that don’t fit their experience, are not helpful or cause harm, which a personality disorder diagnosis often does.

Throughout the exhibition we’ll be running workshops and events including a discussion space followed by a paper making workshop. Come and shred your psych notes up with us. Alchemise them into wild blooming seed/ paper bookmarks. We are also running seed bomb making, fabric/ textile/ patch making, zine making and collage workshops during the exhibition. See https://twitter.com/home for more info.

Artists: Nicole Lacey, Rachel Rowan Olive, Nell Hardy, Bekah Harris, Emma Rose, G, Robyn Timoclea, B.Lain and Bekki.

Opening night: Tuesday 18th July 6-8pm. All welcome.

Opening times

Wednesday 19th July – 11am – 4pm

Thursday 20th July – 2.30 – 8pm

Friday 21tst, Saturday 22nd, Sunday 23rd, Monday 24th and Tuesday 25th – 12 - 6pm

Wednesday 26th July – 11am – 4pm

Thursday 27th July – 2.30pm – 8pm

Friday 28th and Saturday 29th July – 12 – 6pm.

Group Exhibition

Artists: David Barron, Annie Berriman, Caroline Burgess, Lucy Crouch, Laura Fox, Peter Gates, Sandra Partington, Jenny Purrett, Joanna Rucklidge, Fran Woolf

Open: 13-16 July 2023, 12:00-18:00

Private View: 13 July, 18:00-20:00

Nature as Witness is a collective of ten artists from across the UK and Ireland who came together as a group in 2022 during a six-week program run by @drawing_correspondence. We use drawing to explore our relationship with nature and nature’s relationship with us. We celebrate nature’s beauty, but also reflect on what we can learn from it and how we are despoiling it. In many of our works, nature isn’t just the subject, it is a collaborator. Air, earth, fire and water—the elemental constituents of the Universe—leave their trace in the works on show. Drawing is a way of dissolving the distinction between the artist and their subject: nature is our witness.

The exhibition comprises drawings by the individuals in the collective, using a wide range of media, some traditional, some less so. The largest work in the show is a 7m long collaborative drawing of a tree canopy made in Northumberland woodland using feathers, sticks, ink, and rain. It perfectly exemplifies the group’s approach to drawing Nature as Witness.

Image credit Lucy Crouch, type credit Joanna Rucklidge

More info visit: natureaswitness.cargo.site

Please Interact, Do Not Touch is an exhibition showcasing a new series of work produced by London based artists Iola Lawton and Gabe Duarte in a premiering collaboration. The title of the show lends itself to a continuous observation of customary instructions and interactions, compiled and investigated over roughly a period of 3 months.The work branches from drawing and printmaking to photography and moving image, acting as an opportunity to challenge their individual approaches to methods and materials. Currently, both are enjoying merging personal intercultural experiences.

Through a constant push and pull of initiations and responses between the duo, they seek to turn No Format Gallery into a perceivably gestural space, with pieces inviting the audience to question their position in relation to the exhibition works, and the establishment of the everyday moments discovered in their joint practice.

For Please Interact, Do Not Touch, Lawton and Duarte have explored architectural and design forms, using the human figure to create works in response to sound and imagery that can exist independently and in direct correlation to the other.

Iola Lawton is studying Fine Art Drawing at Camberwell and has an intuitive and instinctive approach to her practice, working with various materials and processes. Currently predominantly focusing on photography and moving image, she is interested in the documentation of the world around her and makes work based on observations that occur from being present in a place and in relation to psychogeography. With a background in dance, Iola is increasingly incorporating elements of movement and physicality, exploring durational elements and creating a translation between these mediums and their relationships within a space.

Gabe Duarte is interested in objects that have been missed, lost, presumed dead, and the anonymous actions that have left them wherever and in whichever state they were encountered. Lately, their work has been preoccupied with what separates the monumental from the mundane, and how the material origins of both often get to intersect. Gabe has just graduated from the Fine Art Drawing course at Camberwell College of Arts.

Private View - 4th of July, 5:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Please Interact, Do Not Touch is open July 5th - July 9th, 11 am - 5:30 pm

The manner of my work is in the physical shaping of it, and in it, manner-ism, a bodily shaping of visceral thought, thinking as touch, and  tactile vision. What arises as surface reveals itself as depth, and the self as a fractal thing; the look of a thing is a need in the maker.

Questions of Style and Taste, so disparaged as signs of the trivial, the superficial, go to the heart of the matter, to the self as an autonomic function.

David Minton

Foreignscape Exhibition 31st May - 10th June

Opening Event: Friday 2nd June, 6 pm - 9 pm 

'Watermelon' Performance: (Friday 2nd June) 6 pm - 7 pm

Venue: No Format Gallery, Casting House, Moulding Lane (off Arklow Road) Deptford, SE8 6BN

Foreignscape is an exhibition documenting the lives of artists HsinYing Lin and Adanma Nwankwo as they navigate the foreign landscape of London. Recently relocated from their respective hometowns (Taiwan and Nigeria), the two artists discuss the cultural similarities and differences they’ve observed using hair, location, and language as their motifs.

Group Exhibition

Artists: Jaeho Shin, Luke Bacon, Minkyeong Park, Syaura Qotrunadha, Xuemei Huang

Circle in the Square is a group exhibition of international artists, studying MFA at Goldsmiths University, reconstructs the environment and human nature, with material experiments from diverse geographical conditions and backgrounds.

These days, it is a common phenomenon for people to try and escape the boundaries of our square universe in terms of spaces, computer monitors and our own mind. This exhibition seeks to take the virtual into the digital, and the digital into the physical, extracting notions of fantasy.

Suggested in the titled Circle in the Square, this exhibition seeks to break free from boundaries associated with the physical realm, with the works escaping conventional forms to convey these ideas. The artists travel, play games, move to foreign places, and try to redefine ideal versions of life and nature. The circle becomes a metaphor in how the human mind and the subconscious is eternal and infinite; whilst the square, perhaps the white cube, constrains the infinite into the finite within material boundaries.

The international background of the artists acts as a catalyst for breaking down individualistic geographic origins, relating the works between them and offering interesting dialogues within the space. Aiming to blur the boundaries of the square entrapment modalities of life and the white cube, evolving into a larger hollow sphere of explorations.

Bios:

Jaeho Shin (b. 1988, South Korea) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice extends beyond painting to include video, photography, and installation. His work is a series of attempts in order to explore identity - which includes the personal, social and cultural - through a fine art practice deviating from all the aesthetic and ethical stereotypes that work in the real world. He has been searching for new possibilities by allowing for chance and using materials that are not conventionally used in art making.

He currently attends the MFA Fine Art program at Goldsmiths, University of London in London, UK (2022 - 2024). He received his BA and MA in Journalism and Mass Communication from Dongguk University in Seoul, Korea (2014, 2016) and also studied Communication Design at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, School of Architecture and Design in Bangkok, Thailand (2009 - 2010). Representative exhibitions include “Don’t Change the Color of Your Hair”, Art Space At, Seoul, Korea (2022), “Metamorphosis”, Cyart Space, Seoul, Korea (2020), and “Hagyomány és divat”, Korean Cultural Center in Hungary, Budapest, Hungary (2019). His work is currently in Korean Cultural Center in Hungary.

Luke Anthony Bacon (b.1992, UK) is a British, London-based artist. Currently studying MFA Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. The framework of his practice focuses on irony and sincerity. The Metamodern structure of balance, ‘ironic detachment with sincere engagement’. Both irreverence and sincerity through what is a give and take of metamodernism in the evolution of postmodernism.

Working within painting and sculpting he kills the life from the original counterpart of reference. His objects want to be more but are deficiently made, seemingly now pathetic. His current focus is the idea of extracting the virtual into the physical with specific attentionto the realm of video games.

Minky Park (b.1995, South Korea) majored in design in South Korea and is an artist who uses a wide range of media under the themes of design, technology, sound, sculpture, video, and computer-based installation work.

From the beginning of her work, she experimented in machine-based art fields such as artificial intelligence and 3D printers. Amid the blurring of the distinction between virtual and reality, she explored small groups, asked questions about the impact of technology on humans, and suggested communication and participation with the audience. Currently, she is expanding her work by connecting the impact of the two sides of the technological era with human emotions.

Syaura Qotrunadha (b.1992, Indonesia) is an Indonesian artist who likes to do experiments with various mediums including photography, interactive art, paper recycling, video art, digital archives, installations, and publication materials. Her work mostly talks about music, history, education and social issues.

Currently, Syaura is pursuing postgraduate study at MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths University of London. Her works have been exhibited at “Berdiam/Bertandang: Art for Refuge”, National Gallery of Indonesia (2018), “Cur(e)ating the Earth, Shifting the Center”, Kaya Normal Baru Online Exhibition (2020), “10x10: Me Culture/We Society”, Korea Research Fellow (2021), and “METAMORPHOSIS METAVERSE”, Elektra Virtual Museum, Montreal (2022). She is also one of the shortlisted artists for “Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize” (2020) held by Julius Baer Group and “The 4th VH Award” (2021) held by Hyundai Motor Group.

Xuemei Huang (b.1984, China) conveys her understanding of life, her interpretation of philosophy from life experience in her art works using unlimited materials. She got her B. Tech degree in Food Science and Technology from China Agricultural University in 2005 and worked as a Customs officer after graduation until 2021 when she enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Art programme in Goldsmiths.

In Sep 2021-Jul 2022, while she was broadening her mindset about contemporary art, her essay and art works focused on the motif Uncertainty. She suggests that modernity has blinded us human beings from realising that uncertainty is the normal of the world. She supplied a little examples on how we could do to accept even embrace uncertainties through her graduation show of GDA programme What Breeze Brings.

In her recent study in MFA in Fine Art, Goldsmiths, she tries to learn from Mark Rothko, triggering spiritual emotions through her painting like his, but through depicting snow peaks. She hasn’t given up her trial in textile as well, but this time, a more ecological way, using buried calico to bring the form of meaning of degradation to her viewers.

Participating Artists

Andree Adley | Farrah Akbarali | Liesa Bacchus | Michelle Baharier | Matt Bannister | Rosalind Barker | David Barron | Jon Beaumont | Laura L Bell | Dominic Blower | Alexandra Blum | Su Bonfanti | Ann Bridges | Kathryn Broad | Ken Bruin | Deborah Burnstone | Pauline Burrows | Stephen Carley | Tom Cartmill | Claire Chandler | Natalie Charles | Sarah Christie | Kemi Clark | Marie Connery | Philip Copestake | Hannah Cushion | Steven Dickie | Susannah Douglas | Tracey Downing | Charlotte E Padgham | Renata Fernandez Zarauza | Robert Firzmaurice | Laura Fox | Chantal Gagnon | Andy Gashe | Nic Gear | Nick Grellier | Liz Griffiths | Janine Hall | Paul Hartley | Russell Heron | Sara Hindhaugh | Martin Hoare | Alexandra Hobson | Elisa Hudson | Sarah King | Blair Lamar | Monika Laskowska | Karen Loader | Rosie Lovell | Ashley Loxton | Jo Mason | Vanessa Matten | Heather McAteer | Sally McKay | Mick McNicholas | Shell Meggersse | Melina Merlin | Jane Merriman | Sophie Meyer | Sandra Miralles Alcazar | Nicole Mollett | Claire Mont Smith | James Robert Morrison | Aurelia Neila | Andia Coral Newton | Alison O’Neill | Emma O’Rourke | Sandra Partington | Sumi Perera | Steve Perfect | Sarah Praill | Judit Prieto | Richard Proctor | Claudia Ramirez | Phoebe Randall | Chris Ratcliffe | James Reynolds | Ruth Richmond | Simone Scafiti | Mackenzie Scott Clowes | Victoria Snazell | Sarah Spencer | Hannah Stageman | Carrie Stanley | Euan Stewart | Alison Stirling | Zhenya Stoyanova | Franny Swann | Sonia Thomas | Gwennan Thomas | Arianna Tinulla Milesi | Crimson Trebar | Kyriakos Tsirigotis | Marianne Walker | Shelia Wallis | Anna Walsh | Fania | Weatherby | Michaela Wheater | Lydia Wood | Peter Wylie.

Edited: 07/02/2023

THE PRESENCE OF ABSENCE

17.04 - 23.04.2023

Swanfall Gallery proudly presents ‘The Presence of Absence’, a duo show by London based artists Lucas Bullens and Fergus Channon. The exhibition brings together two bodies of work, one from each artist, each of which explores ideas of movement within emptiness. More specifically, abstracted human marks that caress a void.

Emptiness is seen by most as a space that lacks, but for the artists it is a space that holds all - present, past and future. Fossilised on the surface, the compositions carry multiplicities of the human form, ripples of movement that echo through vast nothingness; becoming Everything-ness. The cracks and smudges inhabiting each frame are surrounded by Ma (the Japanese term for negative space). The Ma surrounds the absented presence like water surrounding a discretely deserted island.

‘Celestial Saults (Divers)’, 2022

This series of prints by the Swiss born artist Lucas Bullens explores notions of the soul being the starting point of all motion in things which live. Here, the human body is rendered to a calligraphic smear. The blurry strokes separate the figures of their human form. Much like the figures of Étienne-Jules Marey and deities of Eastern theology, the multiplicity of the spirit is presented within a single frame. A frame dominated by emptiness, a sort of rectangular Śūnyatā, where the subject is connected to all and out of the void dualities arise.

‘Ghosts of a Presence’, 2022-2023

A blank empty canvas is a loaded powerful symbol of potential for a painter. Infinite possibilities mentally project onto the surface teasing, challenging, and eluding the artist. These indexical marks lock in the evidence of presence, condensing interactions into singular moments in time. Made with the purest and sparest of materials, these tattooed marks are loaded and direct. They are not a translation nor are they an interpretation; They are the marks made, obedient to the proportions and weight of the body, allowing the viewer to access the relationship between body and surface, time as a present moment and as the preservation of a moment.

Lucas Bullens

Lucas Bullens is a Swiss born artist specialising in the medium of photography. Interested in ideas of the ‘soul’, his practice revolves around exploring the transcendental. Using the camera as an instrument, he seeks to extract the immaterial buried within the material. The mostly monochromatic sequences he presents are a minimalist yet intricate reflection of the world he feels around him. Lucas works with an array of materials, however always keeping the manipulation and movement of light at the core of his practice.

Fergus Channon

Fergus Channon is a London based artist exploring ways of marking time through the medium of painting. He has developed a unique method where he manipulates the traditions of painting through the innovative application of distemper to canvas. He has discovered a method of tightening the surface of the canvas to such an extent that he can control his paintings to either change and evolve over time or be affected by interventions that reveal the indexical mark evoking a sense that the artist is present.

Rod Hunt is an award winning Illustrator with a reputation for retro tinged Illustrations and detailed character filled landscapes. He’s also the artist behind the bestselling Where's Stig? books for the BBC's hit TV show Top Gear. His latest book series Where's Your Dog/Cat? for Yappy.com are personalised search and find books where your own pet is the star! His extensive clients list includes Formula E, Guinness World Records, IKEA, Red Bull Racing, Sony Pictures, Sony Music & Toyota.

Web: rodhunt.com

Instagram: @rodhuntdraws 

SFSA have a long history of being inclusive and offering opportunity to all artists. 2022 will be the 6th year of the Painting Open, always a vibrant and celebratory exhibition and we look forward to welcoming you into the no format Gallery. #SFSAPaintingOpen

2022 participating artists

Madi Acharya-Baskerville | Farrah Akbarali | Jane Alexander | Jonathan Alibone | Jim Allchin | Min Angel | Nicholas Ashton | Lily Baker | Matt Bannister | Sarah Barker Brown | Jon Beaumont | Alison Berry | Stefania Boiano | Crimson Mary-Kate Boner | Miranda Boulton | Ann Bridges | Wendy Brooke-Smith | Stephen Buckeridge | Deborah Burnstone | Niki Campbell | Laura Carey | Fiona Chambers | Claire Chandler | George Chapman | Hannah Cushion | Tom Davies | Vera Doarme | Tracey Downing | Gabrielle Eber | Mato Enki | Chris F Clark | Pascal Fessler | Salvatore Fiorello | Robert Fitzmaurice | Shauna Fox | Diane Gerrard | Paul Hartley | Richard Heys | John Heywood-Waddington | Jane Higginbottom | Alexandra Hobson | Chris Horner | Piers Inkpen | Sarah James | Helen Jones | Jean Joseph | Eri Kikkawa | Stevie Ray Latham | James Lawson | Emma Lilly | Abigail Lipski |Katrina Lyne-Watt | Aoibhin Maguire | Enzo Marra | Fiona Masterton | Heather McAteer | Shell Meggersee | Rachel Mercer | Melina Merlin | Jane Merriman | Paula Munteanu | Elizabeth Nast | Matt Nicholls | Emma O’Rourke | Sandra Partington | Sumi Perera | Steve Perfect | Charlotte E Padgham | Mandy Prowse | James Reynolds | Paula Rivas Rodrigues | Peter Roseman | Marie-Therese Ross | Simone Scafiti | Mackenzie Scott Clowes | Gail Seres-Woolfson | Victoria Snazell | Miguel Sopena | Sarah Sparkes | Alison Stirling | Latifah Stranack | Rose Stuart-Smith | Uzma Sultan | Franny Swann | Cinnamon Tatham | Hanna ten Doornkaat | Marcia Teusink | Sarah Tew | Sonia Thomas | Hannah Thomas | Emma Tod | Derval Tubridy | Rebecca Tucker | Jacqueline Utley | Antonella Vismara | Sheila Wallis | Tamsinn Wilson | Corrie Wingate | Matthew Wood | Yuet Yean Teo.

Edited 30/09/2022

https://www.secondfloor.co.uk/painting-open

An international festival of expanded choreography initiated and curated by H2DANCE

The Continual Thread 

Tuesday 25th – Sunday 30th October 2022  

The Continual Thread is the first joint exhibition between brothers Euan and Alan Stewart since 2017.  They wanted to re-examine their work to see if their individual practices had developed commonality in the intervening years. Although there appears no outward similarity in their work, they found a parallel buried in the roots of their individual ideas.  It is here that the broader themes of identity and belonging emerged.  

Euan's new linocut prints explore a crisis of collective and individual identity, picking at the fabric of individuality through experiments in form and composition to a state of anonymity. The contrast of weaving lines and negative space create an industrial rhythm and sense of movement that allows the viewer to project their own sense of self. 

Alan is a painter whose work is about belonging, particularly what it is to have a strong sense of belonging.  He paints the people who are rooted in the coastal communities of north Devon where he lives.  Observing their traditions and annual celebrations he paints the community when at its most united and fascinating. 

Alan and Euan were born in Glasgow and grew up in Prestwick on the south west coast of Scotland and both attended Edinburgh College of Art.  

Alan’s exhibitions include The Royal Scottish Academy, The Royal Academy, Waterhouse and Dodd, and Beaux Arts Bath.  He has pieces in public collections including the Ministry of Justice and Stirling Museum. 

Euan has exhibited widely from The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition to the Awagami Print Exhibition in Japan.  His work is held in collections including The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Wellcome Collection and The Fabriano Museum, Fabriano, Italy. 

Tuesday 25th – Saturday 29th October 2022.  

12-6pm daily. Other times by appointment. 

Private View Friday 28th October 6-9pm 

List Of Works

1. Euan Stewart

Dissonance I-III

Linocut

2022

21 x 30cm

£150 each

2. Euan Stewart

Autonomy I-III

Linocut

2022

21 x 30cm

£150 each

3. Euan Stewart

Fusion I-III

Linocut

2022

56 x 76cm

£450 each unframed

4. Euan Stewart

Dissociation

Linocut

2022

21 x 30cm

£150

5. Euan Stewart

Interruption

Linocut

2022

21 x 30cm

£150

6. Euan Stewart

Intrusion I-III

Linocut

2022

21 x 30cm

£150 each

7. Euan Stewart

Inquisition

Linocut

2022

21 x 30cm

£150

8. Alan Stewart

A Boy From The Unbroken Line

Oil on canvas

2022

90 x 80cm

£3500

9. Alan Stewart

Remember Me

Oil on canvas

2022

30 x 20cm

£500

10. Alan Stewart

I Hear Them Coming

Oil on canvas

2021

130 x 150cm

£6000

11. Alan Stewart

The Neighbours

Charcoal on paper

2017

14.5 x 11cm

£950

12. Alan Stewart

Berrynarbor Eldritch Chair

Assorted wood

2022

Various dimensions

NFS

13. Alan Stewart

Long Since Forgotten #31

Watercolour on paper

2021

14 x 33cm

£1100

14. Alan Stewart

Quiet Preparation

Watercolour on paper

2016

30 x 47cm

£1500

15. Euan Stewart

Fission I-IV

Linocut

2022

56 x 76cm

£450 each unframed

16. Alan Stewart

They Will Follow Us

Oil on canvas

2020

50 x 42cm

£750

17. Alan Stewart

Join Me

Oil on canvas

2020

50 x 42cm

£750

18. Alan Stewart

I Belong With Them All

Oil on canvas

2021

50 x 42cm

£750

19. Alan Stewart

Waiting For The Dance

Oil on canvas

2022

50 x 42cm

£750

20. Alan Stewart

It Is What We Do

Oil on canvas

2021

50 x 42cm

£750

21. Alan Stewart

I Belong Too

Oil on canvas

2021

50 x 42cm

£750