Driftwood Dragon

Driftwood Dragon a solo exhibition by Nick Jensen

The Dragon

She was too young to remember the toy factory that once stood on the corner of Hackney marsh by the Lee Navigation. All she knew was the block of flats they built on the wharf. The place where she lived with her mum and dad.

When she looked out from their living room window she saw what office workers would have seen in the 1960s. Vast playing fields beneath a dark line of trees beside the old river, swooping with crows and cormorants. A parade of electricity pylons. The grey corrugated roofs of distant industrial buildings, humming with machinery. Amid all of this, human figures moved slowly, blurred behind a veil of long grass.

But there was more to the marshes than met the eye. At night she dreamed of crocodiles, rhinos and elephants. Beasts from an age of ice, whose bones lay deep beneath the football pitches. She heard strange cries at night. Splashes down below. Sounds of struggle kept her awake.

Sometimes she’d go to the window, press her hands and face against the glass, then gaze through the phosphorescent haze for signs of the culprit.

Her Dad once told her that three headless bears were found by the canal, long ago, when the factory filled the sky where she lived. Mum told him off for doing that. Said it would give her nightmares. And she wasn’t wrong.

Whatever could kill bears had to be huge. Really huge. And fearless too.

Bold enough to stalk eleven-year-old girls in their dreams.

That winter, howling winds toppled trees and rain hammered down, day after day. The river burst its banks. Water channels criss-crossed the marsh. Chunks of stone broke away from the canal. Her nightmares became more intense. Monsters with talons and fangs tried to drag her into the earth. She ran but never moved, waist-deep in fast-moving canal water, thick with weed, dead fish and rotting vegetation.

One night, sirens shrieked and blue lights flashed. Everyone out, said the police. Something had been seen sticking from the rubble of the damaged navigation. Perhaps a bomb from the war. They didn’t know, but they had to find out using a robot.

The robot discovered that it wasn’t a bomb. But it was up to humans to figure out what it was, then dig it out before it caused any structural problems. Workers in yellow hardhats amassed with forks, shovels and drills. She watched them from the window as they dragged away mud and stones to extract this strange thing which was protruding from the bank.

Eventually, they brought a machine to hoist it on a chain. As the engine shuddered and growled, up it came, many metres long and many thousands of years old. It was sinewy and humped. Dark brown with flecks of white.

Her father said it was wood but she could see the tips of claws poke from clumps of shaggy matter and knew immediately what it was.

That night, she enjoyed a dreamless sleep.

Nick Jensen

Nick Jensen (b.1984) received his BA in Fine Art from Central St Martins in 2007, and his MFA from the Chelsea School of Art and Design in 2010. Jensen’s practice is rooted in perception; how we interpret, filter, and reframe the world around us. He draws his subjects from his imagination, and an amalgam of found and subtly taken phone images.

Using watercolour, he works these quotidian scenes into dynamic, often dissonant, compositions. Beneath the surface of their ostensible beauty, the paintings elicit a sense of unease. Jensen’s characters, rendered with loose, painterly strokes and layered markings, approach and then transgress thresholds in space.

For his first solo exhibition with Paul Smith, “Driftwood Dragon”, Jensen presents a series of paintings inspired by Gareth E. Rees’s 2013 book Marshland, in which Rees describes a makeshift dragon constructed from driftwood and paper. This image resonated deeply with Jensen, whose connection to the marshlands and the River Lea is best understood as psychogeographic. The locality, with its layered histories and lingering sense of mystery, has become both subject and collaborator in this new body of work: a terrain where memory, myth, and the everyday converge.

Jensen’s work has been exhibited internationally at the Duarte Sequeira Gallery in Seoul, Korea (2024) galeriepcp in Paris, France (2024), and Kristin Hjellegjerde, Berlin, Germany (2022). He has participated in solo exhibitions at the Union Gallery in London (2023, 2021); Parlour Gallery, London (2018); Twelve Around One, London (2012), and selected group exhibitions, including The New York Life Gallery, New York (2025), Fores Project, London, (2024) and the JARILAGER Gallery, Cologne, Germany (2022).

Photo Credit: Zander Taketomo

Aymer Cove, Three Brothers 2025

Distemper on paper

76 x 153cm (F: 81 x 203cm) £7,680 inc VAT

Park After School 2025 Watercolour and acrylic on paper

23 x 31 cm (F: 36 x 46 cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Corner Boys 2025

Watercolour and acrylic on paper

23 x 31 cm (F: 36 x 46cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Everyday Ghosts 2025 Watercolour and acrylic on paper

23 x 31 cm (F: 36 x 46cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Fast Blue from the Marshland 2025

Distemper on paper

30 x 42 cm (F: 39.8 x 52cm) £1,230 inc VAT

Trains on the Marshland 2025 Distemper and oil on linen

30 x 40 cm £2,400 inc VAT

Fast Blue from the Marshland II 2025

Distemper on paper

30 x 42 cm (F: 39.8 x 52cm) £1,230 inc VAT

Untitled 2025

Watercolour and acrylic on paper

23 x 31 cm (F: 36 x 46cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Table Tennis 2025

Watercolour and acrylic on paper

23 x 31 cm (F: 36 x 46cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Study for Cool Out 2025

Watercolour on paper

16 x 23 cm (F: 28.1 x 36 cm) £960 inc VAT

No Solo (Green) Study 2025 Watercolour and acrylic on paper

23 x 31 cm (F:36 x 46cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Untitled Yellow 2024 Acrylic and oil on linen

160 x 180 cm £10,560 inc VAT

Downhills Drift 2025 Distemper and oil on linen

76 x 152.3 cm £7,800 inc VAT

Surf 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

66 x 40.5 cm £3,720 inc VAT

Mo Jo 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

80 x 60 cm £4,440 inc VAT

Paris 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

100 x 80 cm £4,800 inc VAT

Techno 2025

Distemper and acrylic on linen

160 x 180 cm £10,560 inc VAT

Marshland 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

205 x 271 cm £15,000 inc VAT

Downhills Drift II 2025 Distemper and oil on linen

76 x 152.3 cm £7,800 inc VAT

Black Path 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

183 x 86 cm £8,400 inc VAT

Cool Out 2025 Acrylic on linen

205 x 220 cm £13,800 inc VAT

Driftwood Dragon 2025 Distemper and oil on linen

45 x 65 cm £3,720 inc VAT

Jarrow Way 2023 Oil and acrylic on canvas

220 x 170 cm £12,960 inc VAT

No Solo Red 2024 Acrylic on linen

185 x 135 cm £9,600 inc VAT

All the Hope and Wonder 2025 Distemper and oil on linen

60 x 60 cm £4,200 inc VAT

Means the World 2025 Distemper and oil on linen

35 x 45 cm £3,000 inc VAT

Hayling Island (Gene and Edie) 2025 Distemper and oil on linen

121 x 152 cm £8,800 inc VAT

Ruby 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

183 x 86.2 cm £8,400 inc VAT

Claw 2026

Distemper and oil on linen

170 x 110 cm £7,100 inc VAT

Finding a Figure 2023 Acrylic and oil on linen

100 x 80 cm £4,800 inc VAT

Green Corridor 2023 Watercolour on paper

31 x 23 cm (F: 41 x 41cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Untitled (Orange) 2023 Watercolour on paper

31 x 23 cm (F: 41 x 41cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Kingsland Road 2025

Watercolour on paper

24 x 36cm (F:46.5 x 39.8 cm) £1,080 inc VAT

Thankful for the Rain 2024 Oil on linen

160 x 180 cm £10,560 inc VAT

My Star 2024 Oil on linen

160 x 180 cm £10,560 inc VAT

Unititled 2025 Distemper on linen

160 x 198 cm £12,600 inc VAT

Sayers and Players 2025 Acrylic on linen

180 x 160 cm £10,560 inc VAT

Stockwell 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

180 x 160 cm £10,560 inc VAT

Far Park 2025

Distemper and oil on linen

200 x 300 cm £15,660 inc VAT

Paul Smith Space, found downstairs at 9 Albemarle Street, is a dedicated gallery presenting artwork which resonates with the company’s ethos of creativity, individuality, and curiosity. A full programme of exhibitions will see Paul Smith Space change periodically throughout the year, each time introducing an exciting new array of work.

For all art enquiries please contact: art@paulsmith.co.uk Katie Heller Art & Exhibitions Manager katie.heller@paulsmith.co.uk Audrey Dennis Gallery Assistant audrey.dennis@paulsmith.co.uk Paul Smith 9 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BL +44 (0)7553 352 959 +44 (0) 207 493 4565

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