Little Lights by paulsmithspace

PAUL SMITH SPACE IS DELIGHTED TO PRESENT

LITTLE LIGHTS

CURATOR BY NICO KOS EARLE IN COLLABORATION WITH

Little Lights

Inspired by the poetry of the late astronomer Rebecca Elson, this group exhibition pays homage to the little ways we protect or restore our imaginative hearts, sparking new desires and glimmers of hope through the darkest of nights. Opening for Valentine’s Day, but before the winter is over, ‘little lights’ is an opportunity to reflect on the regenerative potential of creativity, and how crucial it is to safeguard what we love. Instead of curating a thesis, the works you see here were selected in wonderment, for how they spark feelings of joy, desire or cede to a kind of dream state, not unlike sitting together around a fire, lost in the flickering light.

In essence, the visual arts are about light and perception. The colours we see and impressions we retain, are brought to life by our beautiful star, lifting the colours of this world with every sunrise, and laying them to rest in the gentle gradient of twilight. And yet, we do not want to rest. Since the beginning of civilisation, we have tried to ward off the dark with an increasing velocity of technological innovation that has led to all of us now carrying ‘little lights’ in our pockets. Once a means of communication, too often, they now screen us from lived experience in the real world. We have become afraid of the darkness and have forgotten how to dream.

But we still have artists; alive to the world, processing their impressions through imagination, and developing forms in their chosen medium. Drawn to their inner light, we rarely give pause to the darkness from which they emerged. What strategies do they employ - both in their practice and life – to deliver new work, to rest, to dream and to begin over, and over again? For this ‘little lights’ begins with a performance by Orlando Seale, a multidisciplinary artist who delves deep into the strange hinterland of the unconscious, releasing forms and giving voice to the unseen. On the way in you will encounter a magnificent, burnished oak, wrought under ‘The Influence of Light’ by Emma Levine, who showed me there are three kinds of twilight with her ‘Dawn and Dusk’ series. The flicker of candlelight lifts the wings of a dove in Houda Terjuman’s ‘Blowing the wings of destiny’ and sends into the lush dreamscapes of Catherine Anholt, ‘Heart with Nature’ , pulsing with life. They speak to Robyn Litchfield’s works, like ‘Forest Portal Expanded’ that solemnize the fragile tapestry of wild ecosystems, so poignant with the increasing devastation of wildfires; and Chloe S Moncrieff’s landscapes, that suggest a fiery human presence, in ‘We’re not alone’

Follow the coruscating light, enfolded in swathes of cloth in Florence Reekie’s ‘Knockout’ and feel the tips of your fingers burning in expectation with Emma Witter’s matchstick ‘Unidentified Objects’ . Colm Mac Athlaoich’s sensuous paintings are lit with the spark of ‘Love is the drug’ ; there is an unquenchable thirst in Zach Toppin’s ‘JdA (Delivered by the Voices of Angels)’ ; and flames blast from every instrument in Joachim Lambrecht’s homage to musical legends. Mark Lazenby’s collages gather us into the twinkling miracle of our ever-expanding galaxy, and Phil Goss’s ‘Isle of Rum’ in glazed earthenware is straight from the furnace, just as we spin through the universe on a rock with a molten core.

There are candles too, which, in the words of Anne Frank, ‘can both defy and define the darkness’ , both literally integrated and dripping into the structure of the canvas by Iwan Lewis and figuratively, in Paul Benney’s soul searching paintings that capture the spectacular quality of tenebrism. Geraldine Swayne’s paintings seem to hover on the surface of something glassy, there is a slippage. It is light that permits every visual impression, its presence is indispensable for our encounter with art and integral to the composition. The play of light and shadow is the basis of drawing and,

in its interaction with colour, is the primordial aspect of painting. The large-scale, figurative paintings by Marie Elizabeth Merlin, key us into the history of art and the miracle of hues, whilst her works on paper hint at the interiority of light. “Light is a thing that cannot be reproduced but must be represented by something else - by colour.”

– Paul Cezanne

Every artist in this show has responded to the theme in their own, inimical way, but what unites them all is a sense that something dark, and indescribably hard has been sublimated. Thank you, Sir Paul Smith, for giving us this lucent platform, Katie Heller for being our guide, and James Elwes of Tin Man Art for holding the light.

NICO KOS EARLE

This show is dedicated to the bright burning lives of Maddy Anholt, Miklos Kos, Edward Pettifer, and all the little lights that we carry with us.

For this we go out dark nights, searching For the dimmest stars, For signs of unseen things:

To weigh us down.

To stop the universe

From rushing on and on Into its own beyond Till it exhausts itself and lies down cold, Its last star going out.

Whatever they turn out to be, Let there be swarms of them, Enough for immortality, Always a star where we can warm ourselves.

Let there even be enough to bring it back From its own edges,

To bring us all so close that we ignite The bright spark of resurrection.

– REBECCA ELSON, LET THERE ALWAYS BE LIGHT (SEARCHING FOR DARK MATTER)

ARTISTS

Catherine Anholt

Chloe S Moncrieff

Colm Mac Athlaoich

Emma Levine

Emma Witter

Florence Reekie

Geraldine Swayne

Houda Terjuman

Iwan Lewis

Joachim Lambrechts

Mark Lazenby

Marie Elisabeth Merlin

Orlando Seale

Paul Benney

Phil Goss

Robyn Litchfield

Zach Toppin

CATHERINE ANHOLT

Catherine Anholt

BIOGRAPHY

CATHERINE ANHOLT (b 1958) holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, where she was awarded the Rome Scholarship. She met her husband there, and after the birth of their children, the Anholts settled in the West of England, with studios above the sea near Lyme Regis. Focused on providing for the family, they moved into the world of children’s publishing. In a career spanning 30 years, the Anholts wrote and illustrated more than 200 award-winning children’s books, which were published in 30 languages around the world. Catherine continued to develop her practice alongside, producing hundreds of drawings and paintings on the themes of pregnancy, childbirth, family and nature. As their children grew up and left home - their son Tom becoming one of the leading young artists in BerlinCatherine returned to her studio full time.

“I have a habit when I paint, of listening to the same pieces of music over and over – often Philip Glass or Pergolesi. I suppose it puts me into a reverie or an almost hypnotic state. As I gradually build the layers of colour, my mind becomes empty of conscious thought and worry, and the images arise from my subconscious.

Strangely I have never been a dreamer – or at least I rarely remember my dreams. Perhaps my work is a substitute for dreaming. I find the process calming and restorative, just like deep sleep. I need to paint, just as I need sleep. Without it, I would become overwhelmed in this complicated world. Although my paintings are filled with symbols and narratives, I am happy for the viewer to create their own interpretation, as they would with music, poetry or dreams.”

2023 was marked by the tragic loss of their 35-yearold daughter, Maddy from cancer. ‘The grief of a mother can feel overwhelming,’ says Catherine. ‘But creativity has always been my lifeline. My recent work is about finding some kind of meaning in it all. My forthcoming solo show in Seoul will be called ‘Love Letters’. When I am painting, my daughter is at my side and my paintings are a vision of the beautiful place where her spirit resides.’

“…into

the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—that the light is everything— that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.”

–

MARY OLIVER, HOUSE OF LIGHT

Catherine Anholt

CHLOE S MONCRIEFF

Chloe S Moncrieff

BIOGRAPHY

Chloe S. Moncrieff (b. 1974) is a visual artist, working in rural Hants and London. On completing her foundation at Winchester, she studied English literature; her practice has evolved through experimentation, and a toggle between words and images, including 3 months at the Royal Drawing School in (2010), Cel Del Nord residency in Catalonia, and mentorship at the Turps Banana correspondence course. In her paintings, Moncrieff creates sensuous environments, exploring our complex relationship with the land. As the global situation becomes more turbulent, wracked with wars and aggression, her investigations increasingly depict longed for landscapes. These are wild places, tempered by a sense of abandonment - there’s a yearning for reimagined, more benevolent worlds.

She draws inspiration from poetry and literature; from a misty blue weaving vista to a fluid glimmering forest, or waterscape pulsating with rhythmical intricate

brushwork, the work is regularly informed by quotes she jots down. Brush marks tend to appear fast, fleeting; there’s an urgency, a sense of transience, as if the painting might melt away. “I’m interested in our cognitive dissonance with the environment, how we dignify it, herald it, yet at the same time destroy it. The artwork depicts a nod to this and ultimately, the insignificance of humanity. Whether it’s a solitary figure, an empty scene, or a Lilliputian character next to monumental surroundings, out of kilter space is key.”

Participating in exhibitions across the UK and beyond, her work is in notable private collections. She has exhibited at many British institutions including The Shard, Hastings Museum and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens. Last year, she was invited to conduct a workshop at Jane Austin’s House in Chawton. Her art is currently nominated for Clyde and Co Art Prize and Macfarlanes Art Prize.

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.”

– AYN RAND, ATLAS SHRUGGED

Chloe S Moncrieff

Dusk’s Cloak, 2024

The Wind Travelled Carrying the Scent of the Jasmine Flower, 2024 £3,120.00 inc VAT Oil and acrylic on canvas 120 x 90 cm

Chloe S Moncrieff

We’re Not Alone, 2024

and acrylic on canvas

x 90 cm

And here I arrived, canopied by blue flames, 2024 / 2025 £2,100.00

Acrylic and oil on canvas 76 x 61 cm

Chloe S Moncrieff

COLM MAC ATHLAOICH

Colm Mac Athlaoich

BIOGRAPHY

Colm Mac Athlaoich (b. 1980, Dublin, Ireland), studied at The National College of Art and Design, Dublin and Sint Luca, Brussels where he is now based. He also studied and worked with master printmakers of both The Graphic and The Black Church Print Studios, and was co-founder and co-director of Monster Truck Gallery and studios, Dublin. His earlier career as printmaker, illustrator and musician informs his painting practice, which centres on ideas of materiality, process and perception. His works sit between figuration and abstraction, exploring the space between - to question our relationship with the mass-produced image. Sourcing material from online social platforms as well as self-documentation form a starting point to explore ideas of contemporary pathos and idyll.

‘Love is the drug’ attempts to chronicle a series of moments caught, vignettes from a passing year. For Mac Athlaoich, the painting experience is both these terms at play, capturing the process of making and seeing.

What’s presented is a series of works, kaleidoscopic in arrangement, forming its own narrative and dialogue amongst themselves. Captured memories pass through the process of a dream-like state, fluctuating between representation and abstraction. Attention is given to the framing of subjects, playing with ready-made structures within the original image while allowing for chance occurrences to determine the painting’s outcome. The game of losing and regaining a purchase on memory plays out throughout the series.

He exhibits extensively and has works in a number of Collections. Recent exhibitions include: Love is the Drug, Webber, Turin, ITA. The Art of Sport, Butler Gallery, IRE. Sweat, Grove Gallery Berlin, GER. Percept, Luan Gallery, IRE. Percept / Ethos, Galaria Webber, Turin, ITA. Percept / Pathos, Grove Collective, London, UK. Body Language and Truth , Atelier Coliseum, Brussels, BE. Elsewhere to be found , Farmleigh Estate, Dublin, IRE. Una Terrible Belleza , Rizoma Galeria, Madrid

“The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.”

– AUGUSTE RODIN

Colm Mac Athlaoich

EMMA LEVINE

Emma Levine

BIOGRAPHY

Emma Levine (b 1968) is a multidisciplinary artist, based in Hampshire, with a BA from Central Saint Martin’s. Having exhibited in London with Serena Moreton, London Contemporary Art, throughout the United Kingdom and the United Stated with Art Bastion, Levine’s practice is centred in observation of the natural world and its cycles, in particular how the majesty of winter trees throws the landscape into relief. Documenting many ancient trees across England, is an enduring subject. Capturing the singular beauty of oaks, cedars, alders, hawthorns, copper beeches, with her camera, she then laser cuts these figures, and places them hovering with etymology pins in box frames grounded with silk and linen.

More recently Emma has refocused on her love of flowers and found a contemporary digital medium to bring alive thousands of her photographs of blooms, buds and plants. Playing and layering and creating with nature own exuberant wellspring of superabundance, she collides colours and textiles to manifest new nature

and growth. Her next body of work will feature flowers, insects, beetles through digital prints, screen prints and monoprints and is heading to Deyrolle in Paris with an artistic collaborative collection captured from their extensive library of exquisite butterflies, beetles, moths and dragonflies. “This collection for Paul Smith draws on the magic hour of twilight where the light punctuates and fluoresces. The atmospheric shift of colours that open and close each day give theme to the flowers and plants photographed and enhanced, lifted with light and drenched in spectacular colour.”

Emma has a strong link to the Natural History Museum where she has set up a studio to photograph and document all such items as coral, birds, skeletons, fossils all collections gathered from a century of collecting and stored in London and Thame. Exhibiting widely across the United Kingdom and Europe, and held in major private collections, she is presently collaborating with a major French brand on an exciting new body of work.

The solitary miracle of a dusky bloom

In late winter, sets the heart alight

Soft petals, flush ripe with the scent

Of petrichor, hold a gradient of twilight

In the stillness of a sleepy hollow,

Where everything has come to rest,

A flower stirs in fading starlight

And lifts her face with dawns caress – NICO

Morning Iris, 2024

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5

Emma Levine

Night Iris, 2024

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5

Giclee print, framed in ash 75 x 85 cm

Dusk Rose, 2025

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5 £6,000.00

Giclee print, framed in ash 75 x 85 cm

Emma Levine

Dawn Rose, 2024

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5

£6,000.00 inc VAT

Giclee print, framed in ash

75 x 85 cm

Morpheus Orchid, 2025

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5

Metal Print

Emma Levine

Luna Orchid, 2025

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5 £1,800.00

ChromaLux Metal Print 44 x 52 cm

Didiers Tulip Morning, 2024

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5

Emma Levine

Didiers Tulip Night, 2024

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5 £1,920.00

Night Orchid, 2025

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5

Emma Levine

Blue Hour Orchid, 2025

‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5

Metal Print

x 52 cm

Levine

The Influence of Light, 2019 £30,000.00

Somerset Satin paper, linen, gold leaf, entomology pins box framed in stained ash with museum glass. 163 x 215 cm

Emma

EMMA WITTER

Emma Witter

BIOGRAPHY

Emma Witter (b. 1989) lives and works in London and is currently enrolled on the Art & Humanities MFA at The Royal College of Art. Emma holds a first-class honors degree in Performance Design from Central Saint Martins. On graduating, she won the ‘Seed Fund’ Award’ from the University of the Arts London – a grant to set up her own studio practice, followed by ‘Best New Business Award’ during UAL Enterprise Week.

Witter is an artist that dreams with her hands and works to another time, where nothing is disposable and everything she touches might turn to gold. Working intuitively with found and rescued biomass – byproducts of London’s restaurant industry or salvaged mud larking on the banks of the river Thames – her sculptures are sensational and beguiling. Witter breathes new life into lost things and shows us value where we saw only waste. Her process is alchemical, transforming what has been discarded into what must be saved, and her art speaks to our contemporaneous notion of the sublime. Witter’s ‘Unidentified Objects’

reflect the fascination that Victorian Britain had with the sea, the advancements in scientific discovery and the profound impact this had on popular fictionand culture. Emma forages for ocean biomass and old metal contraptions, which she meticulously dismantles – reassembling and combining them into curious new artefacts. Reminiscent of 19th century parlour ornaments, nautical instruments, fishmongers tools and elaborate table ware of the past, these intricate works make us nostalgic for tales of sea-faring adventure and prompt our uncharted imagination.’

Nico Kos Earle

Numerous exhibitions include solo shows ‘Tender Resurrection’ with Eileen Agar at Bosse & Baum Gallery in London in 2024, ‘Small Ceremonies’ at A.P.A.P. Art Space in Seoul in 2023, and ‘A Moveable Feast’ with the Portman Estate in London in 2023. Emma is a former studio resident at Sarabande, the Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation, Xenia Creative Retreat in Hampshire and Selfridges in London.’

“…Flare up like flame and make big

shadows

I can

move

in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me…”

“Go

to the Limits of Your Longing.”

– RAINER MARIA RILKE

Unidentified Objects 07, 2023 £1,740.00

Found Object (shell) matches 6 x 9 x 7 cm

Emma Witter

Unidentified Objects 08, 2023 £1,500.00

Found Object (shell) matches 8 x 11 x 10 cm

FLORENCE REEKIE

Florence Reekie

BIOGRAPHY

Florence Reekie is a figurative oil painter from Scotland. Longlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize in 2023, in 2021 she received the Art Fund ‘Museum of the Year’ Aberdeen Art Gallery Micro Commission. Reekie is interested in developing ideas around perception, iconography and coding within compositions while experimenting with the materiality of paint. She looks at the concept of beauty ‘secrets’, the trappings of the ways in which we attempt to make ourselves more desirable or construct our identity. Expectation, subversion, and decadence are important themes; her paintings are often contemporary scenes drawing upon classical impressions and techniques. This often leads into historical comparisons, such as how painters have used drapery as a means of bringing being and movement into compositions.

By using material and only alluding to the human interaction Florence is able to deal with complicated themes in her work. “As with many of my works ‘Knockout’ is an investigation into how much of the body can be concealed and still read as a figure. But in this work in particular the decadence of the drapery is at odds with the fabric used as the substrate for the painting, which is a second-hand cotton curtain. My paintings are now exclusively made on recycled materials which poses a new challenge when approaching any new composition; How much fabric to leave raw or seen and how the fabric will respond to the paint? In this piece the nature of the surface is barely revealed but the knowledge it is a fabric with a new purpose is very satisfying for me.”

Her recent solo exhibition, Sumptuary Laws, MAMA, London (2023) was indeed a knockout. Included in numerous group shows, both in the United Kingdom and Scotland, her work is already held in important Private Collections.

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”

–

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Florence Reekie

Carbage 1, 2024

on moire silk, framed

GERALDINE SWAYNE

Geraldine Swayne

Geraldine Swayne, a UK (Sussex) based painter known best known for making vivid miniatures in enamel on metal, as well as large figurative work on canvas. Her practice also includes moving image and music, directing an Imax film in 1999, with music by Nick Cave, and becoming a member of seminal Krautrock group Faust in 2006. She is currently a mentor at Marcus Harvey’s ‘Turps Art School’. Consequently, her figurative paintings combine a rapid performative energy with the mysterious frozen narrative of a context-free film still, typically using an omnivorous variety of sources; personal photographs, found images, pornography etc. to conjure otherworldly narratives and portraits.

‘The alla prima, ‘paint as paint’ quality of her work, is emphasised by abstract passages and semi-accidental effects, the transformations and distortions of which assist in probing psychological states, such that we can we not quite pin down the ‘events’ we come upon. The alluring, painterly qualities of the painted surface also cause her images to further depart from ‘normality’, which makes for an unsettling undertone, uncannily appropriate for times in which people go about their daily business vaguely aware, without grasping it fully, that the very continuation of daily business is under threat.’ Paul Carey-Kent 2020.

BIOGRAPHY

Following a solo presentations with the Saskia Neuman Gallery Stockholm 2024, exhibitions include The Minds of Geraldine Swayne at Project 73 UK; Coming from Inside curated by Sarah Sparkes and Jane Milar at Dulwich Picture House, Small is Beautiful at Flowers Gallery Cork Street, London and Exceptional Faults at ATP Gallery Dulwich. Recipient of the Royal Academy Summer Show Dupree Prize for Best Female Artist 2018 and the Moth Art Prize Ireland 2020; Museum and private collections include Magasin3 Stockholm, Damian Hirst Museum, Worcester College Oxford and the Labour Party. Recent short films ‘Social Media’ and ‘Jude Backwards’, (which were originally commissioned by Greg Rook for his NFT platform ‘Blackbird’), at the MSS festival Schiphorst in July 2024, where she also showed ‘The Go-Between Again’ which was first screened at the Schiphorst Avant Guard Festival in 2010 . She will also perform with Faust alongside composer Yumi Hara and Lou Reed’s Saxophonist Ulrich Kreiger player.

“…My

artificial desert beaches

Where my dry heart used to beat slowly consumed themselves

At the end of my final night, I decided to venture out...

Let’s take a trip to the other side of the sun

Where the light reigns

On the other side of the sun…”

– ‘SOLEIL’ LYRICS BY AMAURY CAMBUZAT (ULAN BATOR) 2009

Geraldine Swayne

HOUDA TERJUMAN

Houda Terjuman

Houda Terjuman (b. 1970, Tangier, Morocco) is a Syrian/Swiss/Moroccan visual artist who lives and works in Barcelona. Her artistic practice encompasses paintings and floating sculptures that recall the language of Surrealism and takes us on a journey through the Middle East, Europe and Africa. A reflection of her own multicultural experience of the world, Terjuman’s work explores identity, displacement and a search for stability. The longing for a home, symbolised by the recurring motif of the tree often juxtaposed with homely pieces of furniture or floating uprooted trees in her sculptures, becomes part of a stressful and painful process that reflects the connectivity and heterogeneity of our de-territorialised world.

Terjuman’s life is made up of visual symbols that she collects and paints into exquisite dreamscapes that reflect on the passage of time and stories of migration.

‘When I was a child, I literally felt as if I was floating between my various identities, I was not rooted in any place and felt as if I did not belong to any community. Being uprooted produces an underlying feelings of fear, loneliness and instability, but it also brings adaptation, open-mindedness, tolerance, empathy for the unknown, a sense of freedom and creativity.’

Art-making came to her, then, as both a form of

BIOGRAPHY

release – a way of disentangling complex emotions and thoughts – and as an expression of solidarity with displaced individuals and communities across the globe.

In addition to numerous exhibitons across the globe –from Contemporary dilemmas: Eternal displacements , RoFa Projects, Maryland, USA (2023) to Femmes et Religion , Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc (2015) - solo exhibitions include (Upcoming) Salon , Kristin Hjellegjerder Gallery, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA (2025); L’ARTE DELLA MIGRAZIONE

E DELL’APPARTENENZA, Vetrina, Pietrasanta, Italy (2024-2025); Échos de Terre Évanescentes, African Arty, Casablanca, Morocco (2024); Glide Through Evanescent Lands , Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin, Germany, (2023); When Hope Smells Like Petrichor , Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2022); Galerie GVCC, Casablanca, Morocco (2021); Untold Stories , Galerie Siniya in Marrakech, Morocco (2019); Because these wings can no longer fly , an artistic project with Arts Cabinet in London, UK (2019); Un Oeil Ouvert sur le Monde Arabe , a collaboration with FFCreative Paris, for “La Nuit Blanche” at L’Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France (2018); Casa Arabe, Madrid, Spain (2018).

“The time has come to turn your heart into a temple of fire. Your essence is gold hidden in dust. To reveal its splendour, you need to burn in the fire of love.”

– RUMI

Houda Terjuman

IWAN LEWIS

Iwan Lewis

BIOGRAPHY

Iwan Lewis (b. North Wales) and based Ynys Môn is an artist who graduated from the MA Painting, Royal College of Art, London in 2011. Lewis builds his works through layers of paint being erased and replaced until the image locks into its place. Unafraid of vibrant tones and dissonant textures, each piece functions as diaristic meditations – or compressions of time. “I’m interested in how identity often manifests through a coalition of fragmented memories. Language also plays a big role in what I do, bilingualism creates a measuring device which forces me to question the value of something through two oppositional lenses. Both pieces explore notions of living with nature. One takes a moments rest on a dry-stone wall after an uphill hike, whilst the other depicts a menacing figure seeking out its prey.”

Lewis has exhibited extensively for the last two decades, a selection of recent group and solo exhibitions include Rapid Eye Movements, SID MOTION, London (2024); A Closed Door, A Den, ARUSHA GALLERY, Somerset (2023); Lle, KINGSGATE PROJECT SPACE, London (2023) and Radical Lethargy, SID MOTION, London (duo) (2022). His work is in various international private and public collections including Soho House and The Government Art Collection. Lewis is co-founder of the artist-led space STUDIO CYBI, established in 2016, which has received Arts Council of Wales funding and The Artes Mundi Venice10 commission in 2023.

“She’s mad, but she’s magic. There’s no lie in her fire.”

– CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Hare Coursing, 2024

Iwan Lewis

Mast Nebo, 2025

x 41 cm

JOACHIM LAMBRECHTS

Joachim Lambrechts

Joachim Lambrechts (b. 1986) is a renowned urban artist from Antwerp, Belgium. In 2001 he began his studies at an art school in Antwerp, then became involved with the graffiti and street art scene and in 2004 he distanced himself from his academic education and left art school. In the years that followed, Joachim spent a lot of time experimenting with various approaches to graffiti and became quickly integrated into the Belgian street art scene. Since 2010, painting on canvas has been Joachim’s main focus in addition to creating street art across Europe. In contrast to his murals, Joachim never makes preliminary studies or sketches when he starts working on a canvas. Paradoxically, he feels freer within the four walls of his studio which is reflected in his paintings. They are the result of a more spontaneous process, and as such, possess a sense of urgency and innocence – like jazz.

Lambrechts’ work is almost always rooted in his life experiences and childhood memories; music is a recurring theme and is closely related to the evolution of his artistic practice. For his latest series, he pays

BIOGRAPHY

tribute to historical jazz legends. ‘There’s something very primal about the music that transcends cultural and social boundaries and inhabits our bodies. Even the oldest human civilizations had music and what’s fascinating is that, like art, music isn’t necessary to human survival: it isn’t going to feed or clothe you but it has the power to move and connect, to create an atmosphere and emotionally transport you.’

Solo exhibitions include (Upcoming) Solo show, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin, (2025); On The Sunny Side Of The Street , Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Tower Bridge, London, UK (2024); No Regrets , Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK (2023); 223 DAYS , Verbeeck Van Dyck Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium (2019); Born to Paint , Graffitistreet, London, UK (2018); Till Death Do Us ‘Art’ , Huberty & Breyne Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Write & Squeeze , Art Gallery, Knokke, Belgium (2017); Bipolar , Brato Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium (2016); and Krank , Aim Space Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium (2016).

“…You can’t start a fire You can’t start a fire without a spark

This gun’s for hire

Even if we’re just dancin’ in the dark…”

– BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, DANCING IN THE DARK

Bobby Haynes, 2024

Enamel paint and oil stick on canvas 100 x 80 cm

Joachim Lambrechts

Louis Armstrong, 2024

VAT

paint and oil stick on canvas 100 x 80 cm

Joachim Lambrechts

Chet Baker -

The pretty boy who went wrong, 2024

£11,520.00 inc VAT 120 x 100 cm

Enamel paint and oil stick on canvas

MARK LAZENBY

Mark Lazenby

BIOGRAPHY

Mark Lazenby holds an MA Communication Art and Design from the Royal College of Art (2000–2002), and a BA (Hons) Graphic Design from Bath College of Higher Education (1993–1996). He has developed a collage-based practice alongside his design, and learnt to pivot between the imperatives of commercial objectives and the freedom of fine art. For this, the London-based designer, has been dubbed a cutand-paste virtuoso, pushing the boundaries of his chosen medium in the tradition of Kurt Schwitters and Joseph Cornell. Gliding between our expectations and colliding disparate worlds, his works express a kind of wonderment.

In essence, paper has become his playground. “It’s not often that one sees a plane bursting through a fireplace, blocks of cheese floating up above the ordered pews of a church, or a giant piece of hard candy abandoned on a beach, but in the strange, dream-like scenes that artist Mark Lazenby fashions within his collages, almost anything appears possible.”

- “A Lesson in Craft: the topsy-turvy collages of artist Mark Lazenby” by Natasha Levy for “Inigo” in their

Almanac section. Sir Peter Blake, a collector of his work, also remarked on his innovative but elegant use of typography. His work ‘Axis of Rotation, Homage to Joseph Cornell’ , was inspired by the The Royal Academy of Art’s seminal exhibition – ‘Joseph Cornell Wanderlust’.

Numerous group shows include “All that Glitters” at Ubicua Gallery; “Freeze For Frieze” in conjunction with Frieze, Moncler and the Royal Collage of Art; and has exhibited with England & co, London, alongside Cornelia Parker and Tracey Emin. “Colour Form PlayMark Lazenby and Liam Stevens” joint show London. Group and solo exhibitions at The Royal College of Art and numerous shows in the UK and USA. Published work includes “CUT & PASTE, 21st Century Collage” by Richard Brereton, Laurence King Publishing. “Cutting Edges, Contemporary Collage” by James Gallagher, Gestalten. “Masters Collage” Lark Books (US), and featured in countless titles - Albam, The Guardian, Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Independent, WPP, Penguin, Vogue, Elephant, The World of Interiors, Dazed & Confused.

“In

one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night. You, only you, will have stars that can laugh!”

–

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, THE LITTLE PRINCE

I Howl with the Jackals, I Hoot with the Owls, 2024

Collage 20.1 x 14.4 cm

Mark Lazenby

Collage, Pencil and Smoke

Mark Lazenby

The Garden 2, 2024

19.8 x 16.3 cm

Collage

Lazenby

Yet We’ve So Narrowly Missed Being Gods, Bright with Eden’s Dawn Light, 2023

£1,548.00 inc VAT

Collage 13.2 x 10.5 cm

Mark

Collage

Mark Lazenby

Collage 45.3 x 59.8 cm

Collage

MARIE ELISABETH MERLIN

Marie Elisabeth Merlin

BIOGRAPHY

Marie-Elisabeth Merlin (b. 1968) obtained her Diplôme de l’École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix (1988 – 1989)

École Stylisme IICC, Marseilles, following three years (1985 – 1988) Ateliers Beaux-Arts, Ateliers Privés Aix, Paul Cezanne’s birthplace. Before she could paint, she was given charcoal. It was the early 80s, at the zenith of France’s love affair with abstract minimalism. As artists like Antoni Tàpies and Pierre Soulages took hold of the public’s imagination, choosing the path of figurative painting was increasingly difficult. Then in 2008, Merlin visited Peter Doig’s exhibition in Paris. “I was overwhelmed with emotion to discover I was not alone as a figurative painter. It’s like we had existed in a parallel universe, unawares, and somehow the world was now ready for us.”

Merlin’s paintings conjure a world that is both marvellous and frightening; evoking feelings of innocence or tenderness - tinged with foreboding.

In this new series, ‘Incandescenes, Séries dès Feu’ , the fire is the face of the wolf she has set free. Like the wolf, the fire represents duality. It animates and burns, gives light but destroys – and it might also represent the essence of her all-consuming desire to paint, regardless of what the world tells her she must do. “The wolf was transformed into fire both, literally and figuratively,” says Merlin, “in a painting ‘Etincelles ou Dans la Gueule du Loup’.” In the flick of a brush, the fire’s edge shape shifted into the figure of a wolf, its pointed flames an outline of this apex predator. “Incandescences, is really about the fire in our bellies – that burning desire to be someone, do something. It can drive us, but it can also destroy us if we let it burn too quickly.”

As a counterpoint to this, we have the “Petits Mondes (little worlds)” , a series that stands apart from her large and medium format paintings. Circular in format, these images are coherent, self-contained, and absent from any danger. We cannot enter these little bubbles; they are the painted equivalent of wormholes and exist in a parallel universe. They speak to the artist’s need to paint through her innermost thoughts, without being disturbed. Each one resolves like a poem –the shimmer of water on a swimmer’s back, the tilt of wings as they reach for the sky – we look at them, but we cannot access them. Figuratively, they link back to a painting entitled “Perdus” (lost) from 2022, in which one circumscribed winter scene seems to hover magically in front of another landscape – like a portal. In it, three men stand over a circular opening in a frozen lake, two red foxes encircling them. Behind this is another picture plane, with fresh green grass

under a summer sun. Something impossible has happened, and we, the viewer, cannot enter here. With the new circular paintings, Merlin reverses this order.

“The danger is elsewhere, outside these circles,” says Merlin, “Inside we see something beautiful, mysterious and abundant, it envelops each figure passing through – diving, swimming, watching – but forever contained within these little worlds.”

Winner of the 9th Paul Ricard Painting Symposium (2018), collectors include Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Charles Saatchi and Paul Ricard among others worldwide. Solo shows include ‘Mondes Hypothétique’, TIN MAN ART, London (2023); ‘Imagined Worlds’, Galerie de la Prévôté, Aix-en-Provence, France (2021); ‘Inhabited-uninhabited’, Château du Seuil, Puyricard, France (2012) and numerous international exhibitions and art fairs with TIN MAN ART.

“Light is a thing that cannot be reproduced but must be represented by something else - by colour.”

– PAUL CEZANNE

A woman sits behind a small fire, her bare foot precariously close to a burning log. She is holding on to a crackling twig, or maybe a wand; white flames cast a warmth of tones onto her glowing figure, but the rest of the picture plane is saturated in a deep coldness of Prussian blue. An owl swoops in from the left, the tips of its wings catch the edge of a moonlit cloud – or is it a mountain - hovering in the distance. The cloud dissects the moon, which might also be a sun in eclipse, shining yellow and lilac; the orb is framed by a garland of leaves that seem to drip into this scene from exactly the point where we might be standing, under a tree, watching this scene. Entitled ‘Incandescences, Feux I’ this painting is the first in a new series by the artist Marie Elisabeth Merlin.

When Merlin was a little girl, she began taking painting lessons at a small atelier in Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cezanne’s birthplace. In this new series, ‘Incandescenes, Séries dès Feu’ , the fire is the face of the wolf she has set free. Like the wolf, the fire represents duality. It animates and burns, gives light but destroys – and it might also represent the essence of her all-consuming desire to paint, regardless of what the world tells her she must do. “The wolf was transformed into fire both, literally and figuratively,” says Merlin, “in a painting ‘Etincelles ou Dans la Gueule du Loup’ .” In the flick of a brush, the fire’s edge shape shifted into the figure of a wolf, its pointed flames an outline of this apex predator. “Incandescences, is really

about the fire in our bellies – that burning desire to be someone, do something. It can drive us, but it can also destroy us if we let it burn too quickly.”

In it, three men stand over a circular opening in a frozen lake, two red foxes encircling them. Behind this is another picture plane, with fresh green grass under a summer sun. Something impossible has happened, and we, the viewer, cannot enter here. With the new circular paintings, Merlin reverses this order. “The danger is elsewhere, outside these circles,” says Merlin, “Inside we see something beautiful, mysterious and abundant, it envelops each figure passing through –diving, swimming, watching – but forever contained within these little worlds.”

Etincelles ou dans la Geule du Loup, 2024 £13,200.00

on canvas

Marie Elisabeth Merlin

La Lune Orange

Marie Elisabeth Merlin

Petite Femme, 2024

Marie Elisabeth Merlin

Peut-etre, 2024 £2,971.00

60 cm diameter

Gouache on paper

Marie Elisabeth Merlin

Loups, 2024

Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe, 2023 £18,680.00

VAT

150 x 150 cm

Oil on canvas

Marie Elisabeth Merlin

ORLANDO SEALE

Orlando Seale

BIOGRAPHY

Orlando Seale (b 1973) studied English and French Literature at Oxford University, acting at the Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique in Paris, and clown at the Ecole Philippe Gaulier. He grew up above his father’s art gallery so some of his earliest memories are of marvelling at the pieces on display and sneaking down to the busy openings with his little sister Delilah. Alongside his mainstream career in theatre, film and TV he continued to tour and perform clown and improvisation. From 2001 onwards he studied Creative Dreamwork with Sandra Seacat and Kim Gillingham, and this informs his creative, interdisciplinary practice to date.

Orlando recently completed the two year ‘Integrative movement and performance practice’ programme at the Thomas Prattki Centre in Berlin, where he now teaches, and is committed to supporting other artists and facilitating creative work in communities where this has been overlooked. This provides rich material for his own drawing, writing and performance work, which underscores his paintings, rich in metaphor, symbolism and references to the collective unconscious. In this spirit, he has created an inaugural ceremony for this ‘little lights’ exhibition at Paul Smith Art.

Recent solo shows and exhibitions include a solo show at Gallérie Etcetera, Eugenie-les-Bains, France (2024); Something Rich and Strange (Conditions for life), performance art piece at b12 festival, Berlin, Germany (2023). In 2022 he created art pieces for ‘Lee’, feature film about the photographer and war correspondent Lee Miller; followed by a solo show, Porto Heli, Greece; ‘Once Upon a Time’ , London group show curated by Katie Heller and Flora Fairbairn (2022); and was selected as artist in residence for INDIE, Vienna, Austria and Montaut, South West France. He has performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company and in the West End, with roles in film and TV including Death on the Nile, Motherland, Hamlet, Industry, Pride and Prejudice, Sleepy Hollow, Monday, Bobby, Hysteria, Jaques et la Mécanique du Cœur, Reign, HBO’s Doll & Em, the IT Crowd, Count Arthur Strong, The West Wing, and many others. With his bands Orlando has played festivals across the UK and Europe, done live sessions for BBC6, and supported the likes of Nadine Shah, Tom Robinson, and Supertramp.

We counted on a rain of comets

It did not come

The shelves are bare

Of dark materials this year

(The will is there)

Perhaps next spring or

If we are to believe

The forecast black

Jewel-encrusted snow

Will fall towards the end

Of this week

Though poorly understood

Doors may open automatically

But not at all stations

Not on all trains

The root of the tongue

The tip of the finger

Coral pink and tangerine

A fringe of tentacles

A ridge of spines

Garlanded with intestines

Sorry I interrupted you

What were you going to say?

A sink-hole yawns

A siren approaches

And what recedes?

Oh well

I’m sure it will come back

Where are the green pastures and the still waters?

What of the myriad creatures?

What if the deer eats the shoots

If you shout

If the comets come early

If they do not come at all

If I am too whimsical

If he pinches your plump cheeks every time he calls

If the termites are too many, too efficient stripping the leaves, if every

Reverent visitor to the grove takes a small piece of the bark and you

Said rest perturbed spirit, rest

And I replied but

All of the dancers are professionals

On zero hour contracts

And yet

– ORLANDO SEALE, BLACK JEWEL-ENCRUSTED SNOW

“If we are to believe The forecast black Jewel-encrusted snow Will fall towards the end

this week”

Black jewel-encrusted snow, 2024

“Who’s there?”, 2024 £5,760.00

VAT Oil on canvas 120 x 90 cm

“Woot drink up eisle eat a crocodile?”, 2024

canvas

Orlando Seale

Oil

£345.00 inc VAT

inc VAT

£168.00 inc VAT

1. Driftwood

smiling pink man, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

21 x 9 cm

£174.00 inc VAT

2. Driftwood pink devil, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

25 x 20 cm

£444.00 inc VAT

3. Joyous dog, 2023

paint on driftwood

x 6 cm

4. Driftwood little cadmium, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

x 7 cm

5. Driftwood priest, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

26 x 13 cm

£264.00

6. Driftwood startled man, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

20 x 8 cm

£264.00 inc VAT

7. Driftwood little green man, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

23 x 9 cm

£168.00 inc VAT

£345.00 inc VAT

£444.00 inc VAT

£204.00 inc VAT

£168.00 inc VAT

£444.00 inc VAT

8. Driftwood boxer, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

x 14 cm

9. Driftwood moonface, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood 30 x 15 cm

£444.00 inc VAT

10. Pursued by man, 2023

Oil paint on driftwood 13 x 7 cm

11. Driftwood face, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood

x 6 cm

12. Driftwood gold man, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood 40 x 17 cm

13. Driftwood lost boy, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood 37 x 15 cm

14. Driftwood, little king, 2024

Oil paint on driftwood 17 x 12 cm

Orlando Seale

1. Dreaming harpy, 2023

Ink, paste and watercolour on found card box

33 x 22 cm

£600.00 inc VAT

2. She comes to all the competitions, 2022

Watercolour, pencil and acrylic on found card box

14.5 x 13.5 cm

£354.00 inc VAT

3. Chelsea pensioner, 2024

Pastel and pencil on card

31 x 18 cm

£450.00 inc VAT

4. Dictator “from this day forward…”, 2022

Collage, pastel, ink, watercolour, acrylic and pencil on found card box

27 x 27 cm

£570.00 inc VAT

5. Hindsight, 2023

Watercolour, pastel, pencil and acrylic on found card box

20 x 15 cm

£348.00 inc VAT

6. You saved us from the dream lion, 2022

Watercolour, pastel and acrylic on used envelope

23 x 36.5 cm

£504.00 inc VAT

7. Tango dancer, 2023

Watercolour, acrylic and pencil on found card box

17.5 x 21 cm

£480.00 inc VAT

8. King, 2022

Pastel and acrylic on found card box

24.5 x 19 cm

£360.00 inc VAT

9. Family constellation, 2023

Pastel, watercolour, pencil and acrylic on found card box

25 x 27 cm

£450.00 inc VAT

10. On the lamb, 2024

Pastel and acrylic on card

35 x 22 cm

£480.00 inc VAT

11. My bodyguard, 2022

Pencil and watercolour on found card box

30 x 40 cm

£564.00 inc VAT

12. You don’t see me before I see me, 2020 Ink on found box

32 x 25 cm

£564.00 inc VAT

13. Empress, 2021

Pencil and acrylic on found card box

34 x 14 cm

£360.00 inc VAT

14. If you want to know what I think, 2024

Collage, pencil and watercolour on found card box

26 x 26 cm

£510.00 inc VAT

15. This Big! 2022

Pastel and watercolour on found card box

34.5 x 20 cm

£450.00 inc VAT

16. How can I tell you about love? 2023

Pencil and acrylic on Greek grocery paper bag

33 x 20 cm

£300.00 inc VAT

17. Sentry Duty, 2022

Pastel, watercolour, acrylic on found card box

36 x 17.5 cm

£360.00 inc VAT

PAUL BENNEY

Paul Benney

BIOGRAPHY

Paul Benney (b. 1959) is a British artist who rose to international prominence as a contemporary artist whilst living and working in New York in the 1980s, then developed a practice as a portraitist in the United Kingdom. A self-taught painter, Benney was a member of the Neo-Expressionist group of the early 80’s in New York’s East Village; he became known for his depictions of stygian themes and dark nights of the soul. Incorporating the classical technique of tenebrism, he weaves formal portraiture with personal expression. His paintings capture the strange elision of the self with art history, religious iconography and contemporary themes, continuing in the tradition of ‘British Mysticism’.

His works are characterised as ‘otherworldly’ or ‘visionary’, touching on themes of surrealism. Laterally, they call to mind the works of Leonora Carrington, and the idea that “The task of the right eye is to peer

into the telescope, while the left eye peers into the microscope.” These paintings explore the precarious film of reality - how beings hover between life and death. Emphasizing contrast in his composition, he highlights this duality: the inner and the outer; matter and spirit; the known and the unknown. In essence they are about illusion, and how what we chose to see reflects what we belive about the world and ourselves.

Primarily working in the medium of paint, he has recently collaborated with MUSE to create digital assets, which offer limited editions of time-based media

His paintings are represented in many notable public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The National Gallery of Australia, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, NYC and The National Portrait Gallery in London, alongside many prominent private and corporate collections.

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

– CARL JUNG, PSYCHOLOGY AND ALCHEMY, PAGE 99

Paul Benney

Auto Da Fe, 2018

x 180 cm

on panel

Paul Benney

Scrying Mirror (Party Girl), 2016

Paul Benney

PHIL GOSS

Phil Goss

BIOGRAPHY

Phil Goss (1984, Bristol) studied English Literature at Edinburgh University and Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art, London. His background in literature has played an important role in developing his work. Through drawing, he creates images that conjure up ways of seeing which resist clear formulation through language. Often using his surroundings as inspiration. His work ranges from ink drawings to working with textiles and installation.

Showing three hand coiled stoneware pots, glazed with designs taken from his drawings and print work, that speak directly to the vessels in Catherine Anholt’s paintings, and intuitive process. “The pots often sit in my studio for many months until it makes sense to put a particular motif on it. The first is a series of birds in

a line taken from a series of figurines I saw in Holland. The second blue vase depicts a horse under a stylised tree. This horse motif had been appearing lots in my work. The last motif is of figures moving across an abstract landscape. This was based on a personal experience of walking across the Scottish island of Rum through the beginnings of a two-day storm. The energy in the brush strokes of the figures captures this charged atmosphere.”

Goss has shown at the V&A Museum and London Design Festival; has designed print for Folk and Paul Smith. He has recently had solo shows in London and Athens and is currently the Director of the Centre for Recent Drawing in London.

“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.”

– CORMAC MCCARTHY, THE ROAD

Phil Goss

Isle of Rum, 2024

x 34 cm

Glazed Earthenware

ROBYN LITCHFIELD

Robyn Litchfield

Robyn Litchfield (b. New Zealand) lives and works in London and holds and MA Fine Art from the City and Guilds of London Art School (2017), and a BA Fine Art from the London Metropolitan University. Her paintings are representations of sublime encounters with pristine and untouched landscapes. Drawing from archival material and personal documents relating to the early exploration and colonisation of New Zealand, Litchfield aims to reimagine and examine the experience of forays into a hitherto unknown space. She is interested in the idea of wilderness and the unknown, as a terrain of the mind and as a place that induces reflexivity. Landscape becomes a medium for exploring personal history, notions of cultural identity, alienation and a sense of belonging.

In recent work, the viewer is immersed in the lowland forests and wetlands of New Zealand, with their complex ecosystem and ancient trees, that once extended to almost all of New Zealand’s shoreline. Today less than fifteen percent remains. These new paintings draw from her own photographs taken during recent visits walking and kayaking in the remote Southwest of the South Island. Working mainly in a monochromatic palette, Litchfield applies transparent

BIOGRAPHY

paint in expressive brushstrokes and works back into the paint using various implements and processes such as scraping, layering and erasure to reveal the luminous ground below. The monochrome sepia coloured works evoke memory, history and nostalgia taking the viewer back in time. Ferns tower above or stretch endlessly to the horizon. Giant centuries old trees loom into fragmented views amongst the verdancy and decomposition of these vestiges of primeval landscapes.

Her work was short listed for the Clifford Chance Postgraduate Printmaking Award (2017) and selected for MA and Other Postgraduates (2018) and Recent Graduates at the Affordable Art Fair. Litchfield was highly commended for her contribution to Exceptional: The Collyer Bristow Award (2018) and was a finalist in the Signature Art Prize (2019). She was selected for the Collyer Bristow Award (2019) and won the Landscape/Cityscape/Seascape category prize in the Jackson’s Arts Painting Prize (2020). She has been long listed for the Contemporary British Painting Prize (2019) and (2021), the John Moores (2020) and is short listed for Beep Painting Prize (2022). She has exhibited widely, including the Royal Academy Summer Show and the Cello Factory, London.

“The very life of any creature is a quick-fading spark in fathomless darkness.”

– ANTHONY DOERR, ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

Robyn Litchfield

Whakapohai, 2024

68.5 x 53.5 cm Oil on Linen

Robyn Litchfield

Forest Portal Expanded, 2022

Archival pigment inks on Hahnemuhle

German Etching with hand applied

acrylic paint, edition of 25

Robyn Litchfield

ZACH TOPPIN

Zach Toppin

BIOGRAPHY

Zach Toppin (b. 1987) is a London based multidisciplinary artist with a BA in the History of Art, The University of Edinburgh, 2005-2008, Fine Art Foundation, Camberwell College of Arts, 2008-2009, and drawing Intensive, The Royal Drawing School, 2023. Toppin’s work is rich in narrative, symbolism and cultural reference, weaving together important stories about emotion, gender, sex and love. Working across painting, drawing and sculpture they archive and reimagine queer histories, constructing visual pathways that provide access to a deeper, more open, but also humorous take on what it means to be a human living today.

Explorations into identity fantasy are borrowed from ancestors – imagined and real - as well as through dissecting the construction of masculinity. Desire and longing are actualised through the fetishization of items, possessions, signifiers, relics; and by investigating this collage of desire, we find a way to navigate the dichotomy of trans unease and euphoria, and how to arrive at strength and authenticity via the armour of dress and signifiers. They bend our notion of soft power into the powerfully seductive. Exhibitions include a solo presentation with Gemma Rolls-Bentley for the London Art Fair (2024); ‘Tales from the Riverbank’, London (2023); Canal Boat Art Fair, London (2023); ‘Coming Out’, Sunbury Workshops, London (2023).

Out of the mid-wood’s twilight Into the meadow’s dawn, Ivory limbed and brown-eyed, Flashes my Faun!

He skips through the copses singing, And his shadow dances along, And I know not which I should follow, Shadow or song!

O Hunter, snare me his shadow!

O Nightingale, catch me his strain!

Else moonstruck with music and madness

I track him in vain!

– OSCAR WILDE, IN THE FOREST

on canvas

Zach Toppin

Nico Kos Earle

Nico Kos Earle is a bi-lingual writer and curator and holds an MA in Literature with Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin. Vice Chair of the Critics Circle, she has a column on Artlyst (A Quiet Lunch / Huffington Post) & ongoing collaboration with The Colour Project. Focused on developing artists in early to mid career, she regularly writes features, title essays and poetry for a wide range of artists (Aigana Gali, Marie Elizabeth Merlin, Nancy Cadogan, Deborah Tarr, Chris Levine, Andrea Hamilton); recent books include Joost Vandebrug’s Cince Lei, Jeff Becton, Emma Witter, Thom Yorke & Stanley Donwood ‘This Is What You Get’ for the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Her curation highlights our connection to nature (Botanicae, Sense of Place, DRIFT) and she conceived of the BLUE Edition, for Blue Marine Foundation. Currently working on a book ‘Aftershot’ with Kasia Wozniak, lyrics, a special commission for the Science Museum, and animated film Oceanum Voces with Dawn Dudek.

BIOGRAPHY

For all art enquiries please contact:

art@paulsmith.co.uk

Katie Heller

Art & Exhibitions Manager

Paul Smith

9 Albemarle Street

London W1S 4BL

+44 (0)7553 352 959

+44 (0) 207 493 4565

katie.heller@paulsmith.co.uk

Brontë Crouch

Arts and Interiors Consultant

Paul Smith

9 Albemarle Street

London W1S 4BL

+44 (0) 207 493 4565

bronte.crouch@paulsmith.co.uk