PAUL SMITH IS DELIGHTED TO PRESENT
WANDERING LIGHTS
CURATOR BY NICO KOS EARLE
EXHIBITION AT PAUL SMITH, WESTBOURNE HOUSE &
PAUL SMITH, MARYLEBONE
Wandering Lights
Inspired by the poetry of the late astronomer Rebecca Elson, this roaming exhibition – an extension of ‘little lights’ at Paul Smith Art Space, Mayfair - pays homage to the little ways we protect or restore our imaginative hearts, awakening desires and glimmers of hope through the seasons. Opening on the 21st of May (to coincide with the RHS Chelsea Flower Show), Wandering Lights is a show that celebrates the regenerative potential of creativity, and how crucial it is to safeguard what we love. Like the advent of spring, 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.
The visual arts are, in essence, 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 gently laying them to rest in the gradient of twilight.
Too often, we take this for granted, 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 consider how they maintain a cycle of creativity: to deliver new work, to rest, to dream and to begin over, and over again.
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 secret, and indescribable has been sublimated and brought to life.
Thank you, Sir Paul Smith, for giving us this lucent platform, Katie Heller for being our guide, and to all the artists for holding the light.
NICO KOS EARLE
EMMA LEVINE
Emma Levine
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
Morning Iris, 2024
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5 £6,000.00
Giclee print, framed in ash
75 x 85 cm
Night Iris, 2024
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5
£6,000.00
Giclee print, framed in ash
75 x 85 cm
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Dusk Rose, 2025
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5
£6,000.00
Giclee print, framed in ash
75 x 85 cm
Dawn Rose, 2024
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5
£6,000.00
Giclee print, framed in ash
75 x 85 cm
Emma Levine
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Morpheus Orchid, 2025
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5 £1,800.00
ChromaLux Metal Print
45 x 52 cm
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Luna Orchid, 2025
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5
ChromaLux Metal Print 44 x 52 cm
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Night Orchid, 2025
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5
ChromaLux Metal Print
43 x 52 cm
Blue Hour Orchid, 2025
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5
ChromaLux Metal Print
42 x 52 cm
Didiers Tulip Morning, 2024
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5
ChromaLux Metal Print
52 x 58 cm
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Didiers Tulip Night, 2024
‘Artist Proof’, edition of 5 £1,920.00
ChromaLux Metal Print
53 x 58 cm
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 WITTER
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.’
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
Objects 08, 2023 £1,500.00
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Unidentified
Found Object (shell) matches 8 x 11 x 10 cm
Emma Witter
unframed
Rose to Glory Emma Witter, 2020
Giclée print on Hahnemuhle Pearl paper
H170 x W113 mm Edition 1/10
£300
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Rose to Glory, 2020
Emma Witter with Gaëtan Bernéde Edition 1/10
113 x 170 mm
Giclée print on Hahnemuhle Pearl paper
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Oyster Shell Flower, 2025 £1,920.00
Oyster shells, electroformed copper, metallic pigment
Polaroid photograph in custom frame 23.5 x 27 x 2.5 cm
Showing at Paul Smith Marylebone
Polaroid photograph in custom frame 23.5 x 27 x 2.5 cm
Anthurium, 2019
Emma Witter with Asiko Artist Edition of 10
£960.00
42 x 32 cm framed
Giclée print on Hahnemuhle bamboo rag
MARK LAZENBY
Mark Lazenby
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
£1,548.00
Collage 20.1 x 14.4 cm
Collage, Pencil and Smoke
Collage
Yet We’ve So Narrowly Missed Being Gods, Bright with Eden’s Dawn Light, 2023
£1,548.00
Collage 13.2 x 10.5 cm
Collage
ORLANDO SEALE
Orlando Seale
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
And yet
– ORLANDO SEALE, BLACK JEWEL-ENCRUSTED SNOW
“If we are to believe The forecast black Jewel-encrusted snow Will fall towards the end Of this week”
Orlando Seale
Showing at Paul Smith Westbourne House
“Woot drink up eisle eat a crocodile?”, 2024
“Who’s there?”, 2024
on canvas
x 90 cm
Orlando Seale
1. Greedy reunion
Pastel on Cardboard
30 x 30 cm
£480.00
2. Yes Gustave
Watercolour and ink on card 21 x 29.7 cm
£300.00
3. Cinema
Watercolour, acrylic and pencil on card 30 x 30 cm
£350.00
4. Cardboard Christ
Cardboard, ink and watercolour
30 x 40 cm
£550.00
5. Court intrigue
Pencil and watercolour on card
x
6. Burly fellow
Watercolour, acrylic and ink on Boots bag
x 30 cm £425.00
7. We recently remodelled the space
Watercolour, ink and collage on paper
x 29.7 cm
£450.00
8. Rock music
Pencil and watercolour on card
x 29.7 cm
£425.00
9. Do not ignore this letter
Watercolour, acrylic, ink and pencil on envelope
x 29.7
10. We abandoned the strawberry Ink on cardboard
x 40 cm £450.00
11. The guest have arrived madam
pastel and felt on card
12. Private, no entry
Watercolour, pastel and pencil on card
x 40 cm
£500.00
Orlando Seale
13. Jaw dropping
Acrylic and pencil on card
x 30 cm
14. The tall man’s nightmare
Watercolour, acrylic, pastel and pencil on card
x 30 cm
£450.00
15. May we present linus, the fruit of our loins
Pastel and pencil on card
x 30 cm
£450.00
16. Happy birthday to you
Watercolour, pencil, pastel, collage on envelope and card
x 40 cm
17. Aegean swimmer Pastel and ink on card
x
18. Time Ink and pastel on card
x 40 cm
£565.00
19. You saved us from the dream lion, 2022
Watercolour, pastel and acrylic on used envelope
23 x 36.5 cm
£504.00
20. My bodyguard, 2022
Pencil and watercolour on found card box 30 x 40 cm
£564.00
21. If you want to know what I think, 2024
Collage, pencil and watercolour on found card box
x
Orlando Seale
1. Driftwood smiling pink man, 2024
Oil paint on driftwood
x
2. Driftwood pink devil, 2024
Oil paint on driftwood
x
3. Joyous dog, 2023 Oil paint on driftwood
4. Driftwood little cadmium, 2024 Oil paint
5. Driftwood priest, 2024
6. Driftwood startled man, 2024
7. Driftwood little green man, 2024
8. Driftwood boxer, 2024
9. Driftwood moonface, 2024
10. Pursued by man, 2023
11. Driftwood face, 2024
12. Driftwood gold man, 2024
13. Driftwood lost boy, 2024
14. Driftwood, little king, 2024
COLM MAC ATHLAOICH
Colm Mac Athlaoich
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
Opus 2, Arcadiana
on canvas
x 60 cm
Colm Mac Athlaoich
Showing at Paul Smith Westbourne House
PHIL GOSS
Phil Goss
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
Birds, 2024
35 x 35 cm
Glazed Earthenware
Isle of Rum, 2024
36 x 34 cm
Glazed Earthenware
The Horse, 2024 £1,560.00
35 x 35 cm
Glazed Earthenware
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