Works 309
Edition 4+2AP
An iconic and unique design by Marzio Cecchi for Studio Most in Italy, circa early 1970s. Made of wicker rope, the graceful and sculptural “S” form is supported by a circular base. By Marzio Cecchi, (1940-1990) Born near Florence on March 1st 1940, Marzio Cecchi comes from a design environment, his mother being Giulia Carla Cecchi, a name famous in the world of fashion with her haute couture creations paraded at Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Italy. Marzio Cecchi was a famous architect from Firenze who totally designed his projects. He graduated as an Architect from the University of Florence. Marzio Cecchi was an eclectic and visionary Architect, Designer and Artist. He died in an accident in New York on January 1st 1990, leaving timeless designs and one of a kind pieces highly collectible on the market
A pair of 1960’s armchairs designed by Tatra. Tatra’s designs are characterized by simple geometric shapes and bright colours, typical of the art and design movement known as "functionalism", which advocated a rational, utilitarian aesthetic. Their furniture was also known for its high quality craftsmanship, using materials such as beech, walnut and rosewood. These timeless chairs have bee upholstered in Paul Smith Maharam’s new pattern released this summer – Stepped Plaid, Lake.
"Rendered in a palette of blue, greens and yellows with figures depicting transient experiences, the work is part of a group of my long term projects which I work on periodically. Everytime I learn something new I try it on one of my ‘monalisas’, 2 or 3 projects I am slowly working on. Officially beginning in 2021, the work attempts to study 3 things: 1) How to prime a secondhand cotton fabric into a canvas robust enough to handle a continuous tactile process of working. Towards the middle of 2022 is when I figured out the right proportions for a matt non-cracking finish. 2) Building layered narratives. The material offers a diverse range of storytelling opportunities. Each layer offers multiple entries into the work. 3) The work studies textures both applied and markmade. It was definitely an exercise in restraint."
Edition of 3 with 2 AP
In a time of extreme polarization, climate catastrophe, and an endless terrifying news cycle, the artist team Ghost of a Dream has created their multi-faceted digital project Aligned by the Sun in an effort to bring hope to our collective experience and unify our fractured planet. Each work in this series is created by overlaying images of a setting sun that align vastly different and often non-neighboring locations.
Aligned by the Sun (a total revolution) collages videos of the sunset by capturing stills, then layering, desaturating and combining these disparate images into one place. The videos in Aligned by the Sun have been contributed by artists in 225 nations around the globe that Ghost has been in communication with about the project (including artists from each of the UN Member States as well as many other locations). Ghost of a Dream’s Aligned by the Sun (a total revolution) offers an approach, or entry point, to important conversations around equality, location, migration, and the environment.
Please note that dimensions include hanging threads
Main panel dimensions: 58 x 58 cm
“My figurative expressions are a negotiation between styles often favoring a deskilled approach to rendering the body. Aput and two others were made around the time I was thinking about composition and balance. There was an active meditation on ratios and weights."
"It is an artwork coming from my recent body of work exploring my Ugandan history and self-understanding. So far the project has given birth to The exhibition “Ateker, ijasi biyayi? - Greetings from the road (A dedication)”, a homecoming for me, showcasing my works in my first solo exhibition in the country.
The work is a translation of multiple influences including a black and white flat coiled basket currently hanging on my wall, time spent in Venice working with the Ca Pesaro Museum Permanent Collection where Paul Chagall’s Praying Jew was on display.
It is a multi-layered exploration of the ethics of knowledge or intelligence translation. It questions the translator’s responsibility towards Care in Witness."
Signed, titled and dated 'J. Eielson, Bandiere-99' (on the reverse)
1920 × 1080
16:9
It was Cambodian New Year, and my mom had requested a monk to come bless our family. It’s not often I see all my siblings gathered in one place at once. We all pay our respects, taking cue from our mother and auntie while they chant along and bow several times throughout the hymn. When all is done, everyone is sprinkled with blessed water and the monk ties a red string around each of the family member’s wrists, enchanted with protection and good fortune. In this painting, one of my elder sisters is holding her youngest. She’s holding her daughter firmly, cupping her hand into her palm as the monk uses a lighter to burn off the ends of the string.
In the style of American sculptor and designer Paul Evans, famed for his contributions to the American Craft Movement, who rejected mass production in favour of hand applied finishes, creating one of kind unrepeatable pieces.
Each Panel: 180 x 140 cm (70.87 x 55.12 in)
Within the picture plane, this portal suggests the dimension of space on a flat surface. This painting began with a composite image of a temple from Cambodia. The doorway acts as a threshold bringing together different perspectives of places and times of the day. I merged the temple’s facade into the coastal sidewalks of Long Beach, using the sky, domesticated plants, and the surrounding man-made structures to bring the settings together. Ascending, a woman emerges into view, her attention focused on something out of sight from the viewer. Another figure is depicted outside the frame made present through a casted shadow which contrasts with the lighting. In the foreground, there’s a plate of fruit along with a bowl of rice grains with three sticks of incense in it – a gesture to a practice my mom continues to exercise from her religion of Buddhism.
My family has been asking me lately if I plan to get married to my partner. My parents have seven kids and we’re all in our 30s and 40s now. None of us have wed in a traditional Khmer ceremony. Our mother has told us indirectly that she would like to see at least one of us celebrate it before she passes. I didn’t really care growing up in America, though. The idea of marriage just seemed like a play on commitment followed by divorce. For my mother, marriage was a sense of security for a woman. She was constantly pressing my older siblings to have an arranged marriage with someone back in her home country. All her plans failed, even when one sibling said yes. I wanted to wait until I truly found the one. She hated boyfriends – she thought of it as a tainted act. It hurt to know she felt that way, but I think she gets it now. I grew up with the liberty to choose who could be my forever partner, and I think I finally found him.
Unframed: 52 × 76.8 x 0.5 cm
Framed: 62.5 × 87 × 5 cm
Sheet: 31.3 cm × 43.2 cm
Framed: 45.4 × 57.5 × 3.8 cm
To create this new work, Manning asked Sara Mearns, Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet, to sit for her. The dancers of NYCB are renowned for their dynamism, athleticism and speed and these qualities are evident in Manning’s fiercely energetic and fluid handling of paint. Manning was drawn to what she describes as Mearns’s ‘rare combination of strength and delicacy’ in movement. At the centre of the composition, she paints the serene face of Mearns, a still point amidst the centrifugal force of her own body, which Manning suggests is arching, bending, folding and reaching around her.
Flickering white highlights imply a body in constant motion and rapid, swirling brushstrokes prevent our eye from settling. To look is to be caught up in the explosive action that is unfolding in front of us. The title of the work, Staccato, adds to the image the sound of a sharp, punctuated musical rhythm and evokes a sense of duration.
In 2023, Manning collaborated with choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon, designing sets for a new ballet for New York City Ballet entitled From You Within Me. These graphite ‘gesture’ studies, as Manning refers to them, exhibited here for first time, were made in the studios of New York City Ballet and were an attempt to record the continuous, rapid movement of dancers’ bodies at the very moment that Wheeldon found the shapes and vocabulary he desired. As Wheeldon coaxed new shapes from the dancers, so Manning tried to capture that process on paper, describing the resulting sketches as ‘a visual metronome.’
Courtesy of A.I. and artist
Haffendi Anuar’s webbed work mimics a spider’s scaffolding poised, at the ready to ensnare and entangle flying prey. The attachment of such silk fibres, in this case, foregrounds a two dimensional architecture enclosing memories in sepia [tins of Nestle Nespray, nenek’s baju (grandmother’s outfit), a limb, a traditional Malay sarong, a child’s pinafore] intersected by swatches of colour [royal and mayan blue]. Elements of autobiography sourced from a found family photo nod towards the archive and present.
© Alvaro Barrington. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul. Photo: Charles Duprat.
![Compass Pose [Deanna]](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/nijaqtbv/production/d81ffd0e25633d8f34df0015fb775882698e705b-1000x992.png?h=800&q=80&auto=format)
![Compass Pose [Deanna]](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/nijaqtbv/production/d81ffd0e25633d8f34df0015fb775882698e705b-1000x992.png?w=30&q=1&auto=format)
In Cookie Jar, I wanted to create a work that plays with perception and forces the viewer to do a double take. That shift between what you think you're seeing and what's actually there is central to this piece. The title, Cookie Jar, is a playful nod to the phrase ‘hand in the cookie jar’, but with a cheeky twist. I wanted to add a layer of humour and mischief, balancing this illusion with a deeper exploration of how we interpret the body. The hand's placement and the way the leg folds are carefully composed to heighten the illusion, making the body feel both intimate and abstract. It's not about shock value, but about inviting curiosity and encouraging people to look closer. This piece is as much about playfulness as it is about challenging how we see and interpret familiar shapes and gestures.
Edition 3 of 5 + 1 AP
Signed and dated
Legs that extend, bend and kick erupt from the surface, a writhing mass of movement interspersed with rippling fabric and organic forms. It is as though some kind of dynamic metamorphosis is enacted in front of our eyes – what Kneebone refers to as ‘the pulse of life.’ Astonishingly, this illusion of continuous movement is created through porcelain, a medium that although malleable when wet, hardens to become one of the most brittle. Kneebone pushes the medium of porcelain to its limits. This work partly collapsed in the kiln, losing some of its verticality, but finding beauty and movement in the result, this then becomes an important part of how she depicts the body moving in time and space.
This sculpture was originally made for an exhibition and performance project entitled The Dance Project (2018–19). The pencil drawings show Kneebone’s continued interest in how to portray a body moving through space to suggest duration. Elongated limbs that have multiplied and fused, feet touching feet, fall through the air. Our eye sees movement as we follow the shapes of the tumbling, twisting, arched forms.
This is a triptych painting of a local Asian market out in Cambodia Town, Long Beach where I’m from. I was processing the events of civil unrest that took place in my community during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was Spring 2020 and the virus had abruptly halted much of the world. The unrest grew in America and soon it took hold of neighbourhoods and cities across the country. The awareness of such occurrences triggered and sparked conversations about historical past events that had swallowed societies into chaos. This painting was another look into a profound understanding of that truth.
I referenced one facade of a store front and juxtaposed it with other interior spaces. I selected a few photos I had taken on my phone to build this composition. I was pondering the idea of civil unrest, drawing parallel between the historical events of a past generation and the recent events of 2020.
Each: 177 x 136 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and ActionSpace.
Photo credit, Francis Ware.
Each: 158 x 136 cm. Image courtesy of the artist and ActionSpace.
Photo credit, Francis Ware
A visual artist, performer and choreographer, the media of Peake’s artistic practice are absolutely intertwined. This pair of paintings, specially made for this exhibition, form part on an ongoing series of work that Peake refers to as ‘Factual Actual.’ The process begins with her making a factual imprint of her own body on paper, drawing around it as she moves. She then builds on this embodied tracing, painting over to add marks that recall the sensations of the movement itself.
In these works, her body seems to twist from side to side, tumbling forward and upside down and we see multiple arms, breasts and heads. This multiplicity of bodies, Peake says, reflects the fact that we are multidimensional beings, which cannot be confined to single version of the self. As she adds marks to the paper, she also edits out, inviting us to contrast the imagined body with its objective form.
A visual artist, performer and choreographer, the media of Peake’s artistic practice are absolutely intertwined. This pair of paintings, specially made for this exhibition, form part on an ongoing series of work that Peake refers to as ‘Factual Actual.’ The process begins with her making a factual imprint of her own body on paper, drawing around it as she moves. She then builds on this embodied tracing, painting over to add marks that recall the sensations of the movement itself.
In these works, her body seems to twist from side to side, tumbling forward and upside down and we see multiple arms, breasts and heads. This multiplicity of bodies, Peake says, reflects the fact that we are multidimensional beings, which cannot be confined to single version of the self. As she adds marks to the paper, she also edits out, inviting us to contrast the imagined body with its objective form.
In this piece Fingers Crossed, I wanted to embrace a sense of silliness and humour by manipulating the armpit to resemble female genitalia. There’s something inherently playful about the act – it’s a visual joke that catches you off guard, making you do a double take. It plays with the body in a way that’s cheeky and light-hearted, inviting the viewer to laugh or at least smile at the absurdity of the illusion. For me, this piece is about not taking the body too seriously. The human form is fascinating and powerful, but it can also be funny and awkward. By transforming something as ordinary as an armpit into something unexpected, I wanted to highlight the body’s potential for humour and its ability to surprise us – finding joy in the absurd and seeing the familiar in unfamiliar ways.
Carlos Sagrera’s work captures the intricacies of memory and the ever-evolving passage of time. The essence of his work lies in the masterful fusion of hyper-realism and abstraction, creating a mesmerizing interplay within his paintings.
Freeman Street is where my first home was. It’s where it all began for me and my siblings. Home wasn’t far from the coastline, just a 10-minute drive to the bluffs. When my elders talk about those days, they remind me what it really was like. Our neighbourhood was notorious for gangs during the 80s and 90s. I didn’t know, I was little then. Not too long ago, my parents met my partner’s parents for the first time, and they chatted. My mom mentioned that we lived on Freeman Street and they responded, ‘That was a dangerous block.’ When I heard my partner’s mom say that, it was another affirmation for me. I grew up on Freeman Street in the ghettos of Long Beach, California.
Painting stickered signs is a motif or trope that I use often in my work. It’s a nod towards a subculture that thrives off of taking up space in this particular way. It points to a rebellious act with a play of notoriety in public spaces, like graffiti tagging. This particular ‘no left turn’ sign is located in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles. I was walking back to my car after finishing lunch when I saw it. Another nice one to paint, I thought. Won’t be the same tomorrow.
Bo Kim’s work examines the evolving dynamics of human relationships—both with one another and with nature—through the lens of time.
Reflecting on her parents, Bo writes, "They always seemed as strong as trees, but now I see the wrinkles on their faces. I never imagined my trees would bend; I believed they’d remain lush and green in the forest.” This reflection lies at the heart of her My Tree series, which delves into the finite nature of life. By chronicling her parents’ aging, Bo transforms a deeply personal story into a universal narrative. While time and aging are natural processes, accepting them with grace remains one of life’s greatest challenges.
Bo’s work also touches on the profound, timeless bonds between parents and children, inviting viewers to reflect on the enduring nature of cosmic time, which transcends individual relationships. In From a Pair, September 1993, she uses the image of two intertwined trees to symbolize the interconnected lives of parents and children. Through this visual metaphor, Kim gains insights, observes emotions, and comes to terms with life’s principles—truths that are often difficult to grasp. Her work ultimately reveals that while each person’s destiny is unique, our lives are intrinsically interconnected and interdependent.
Legs that extend, bend and kick erupt from the surface, a writhing mass of movement interspersed with rippling fabric and organic forms. It is as though some kind of dynamic metamorphosis is enacted in front of our eyes – what Kneebone refers to as ‘the pulse of life.’ Astonishingly, this illusion of continuous movement is created through porcelain, a medium that although malleable when wet, hardens to become one of the most brittle. Kneebone pushes the medium of porcelain to its limits. This work partly collapsed in the kiln, losing some of its verticality, but finding beauty and movement in the result, this then becomes an important part of how she depicts the body moving in time and space.
This sculpture was originally made for an exhibition and performance project entitled The Dance Project (2018–19). The pencil drawings show Kneebone’s continued interest in how to portray a body moving through space to suggest duration. Elongated limbs that have multiplied and fused, feet touching feet, fall through the air. Our eye sees movement as we follow the shapes of the tumbling, twisting, arched forms.
Legs that extend, bend and kick erupt from the surface, a writhing mass of movement interspersed with rippling fabric and organic forms. It is as though some kind of dynamic metamorphosis is enacted in front of our eyes – what Kneebone refers to as ‘the pulse of life.’ Astonishingly, this illusion of continuous movement is created through porcelain, a medium that although malleable when wet, hardens to become one of the most brittle. Kneebone pushes the medium of porcelain to its limits. This work partly collapsed in the kiln, losing some of its verticality, but finding beauty and movement in the result, this then becomes an important part of how she depicts the body moving in time and space.
This sculpture was originally made for an exhibition and performance project entitled The Dance Project (2018–19). The pencil drawings show Kneebone’s continued interest in how to portray a body moving through space to suggest duration. Elongated limbs that have multiplied and fused, feet touching feet, fall through the air. Our eye sees movement as we follow the shapes of the tumbling, twisting, arched forms.
Courtesy of the artist
In Homemade, I wanted to explore how perception can shift and how the body can transform into something unexpected. At first glance, the work might appear to depict an intimate interaction between two people, but it’s actually one person, with the tongue interacting with their own arm while the hand manipulates the flesh. That play between assumption and reality is central to this piece.
The title, Homemade, reflects the self-created nature of the image, something personal and entirely constructed from one body. It plays on the idea of something that looks collaborative or sensual but is, in fact, completely self-contained. It’s about inviting the viewer to reconsider what they’re looking at and how easily the body can be reimagined.
The folds of the skin and the placement of the tongue and hand are carefully arranged to create this illusion, transforming an ordinary gesture into something provocative and ambiguous. I wanted to show how the body’s forms can be manipulated and reinterpreted to create new layers of meaning, encouraging a second look and challenging assumptions about intimacy and interaction.
Image courtesy of the artist and Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York
Imperfect Symmetry explores the tension between symmetry and imperfection. The vellum’s natural vertical line splits the image of the body in half, perfectly following the body down from the breasts to the genitals. It highlights the impossibility of true symmetry, most noticeable in the genitalia. With this piece, I wanted to draw focus on the tension between the ideal and the real.
Sheet: 31.3 cm × 43.2 cm
Framed: 45.4 × 57.5 × 3.8 cm
To create this new work, Manning asked Sara Mearns, Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet, to sit for her. The dancers of NYCB are renowned for their dynamism, athleticism and speed and these qualities are evident in Manning’s fiercely energetic and fluid handling of paint. Manning was drawn to what she describes as Mearns’s ‘rare combination of strength and delicacy’ in movement. At the centre of the composition, she paints the serene face of Mearns, a still point amidst the centrifugal force of her own body, which Manning suggests is arching, bending, folding and reaching around her.
Flickering white highlights imply a body in constant motion and rapid, swirling brushstrokes prevent our eye from settling. To look is to be caught up in the explosive action that is unfolding in front of us. The title of the work, Staccato, adds to the image the sound of a sharp, punctuated musical rhythm and evokes a sense of duration.
In 2023, Manning collaborated with choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon, designing sets for a new ballet for New York City Ballet entitled From You Within Me. These graphite ‘gesture’ studies, as Manning refers to them, exhibited here for first time, were made in the studios of New York City Ballet and were an attempt to record the continuous, rapid movement of dancers’ bodies at the very moment that Wheeldon found the shapes and vocabulary he desired. As Wheeldon coaxed new shapes from the dancers, so Manning tried to capture that process on paper, describing the resulting sketches as ‘a visual metronome.’
Edition of 5 (#3/5)
Edition 1 of 5 + 1 AP
Signed and dated
Please note that dimensions include hanging threads
Main panel dimensions: 48 x 58 cm
Sometimes when I think of the past, I like to look back at old family photo albums. I have lots of siblings and we don’t really spend much time together. I have three older sisters and tend to call me and my little brother the second batch. I watched my sisters grow through adolescence and into young women, then young mothers. I wanted so badly to join in on whatever they were doing. I watched them try on new clothes my mother bought for them, put on makeup, do their hair, use cell phones and so on. I could never join them – I was always too young. Too young to join in on the conversations, too young to come along, too young to play with. I wonder often, what were they like, really? Now that we are older, I can ask them.
This brand new painting titled Kiss (2024) by EunJung Park (Seoul, KR) is a vibrant, surreal-abstract oil on canvas. At the center, there appears to be a merging of fleshy, soft forms that resemble both human and non-human shapes: Is it a leg or the body of an airplane? The swirling patterns and layered textures in the background contribute to an otherworldly atmosphere, suggesting themes of connection and transformation. The loose, flowing strokes echo the ethereal qualities of ancient Asian ink paintings of landscapes, where the interplay of light and shadow creates a sense of vastness and spiritual depth, inviting the viewer to experience both tranquility and motion. All shapes and patterns are intertwined, creating a sense of movement and intimacy, which aligns with the title Kiss. Soft pinks, reds, and peach tones dominate, giving the painting a tactile, almost sensuous feel. Like in many of her works, EunJung Park delves into the state of in-betweenness. In this painting, she reflects on the multiple aspects of living and loving between the East and the West, specifically the US and South Korea.
Edition 4+2AP
The Legend of the Fire was a Portuguese folk tale Rego first heard when she was a child growing up in Cascais, near Lisbon. It is the disturbing story of a little girl who lived with her grandparents and family dog. One night, the bogeymen (‘papões’) tried to break in but the dog barked and scared them away. Furious at being woken by the dog, the grandparents cut of its tail. The next night, the bogeymen re-appeared and were once again scared off by the family dog. This time the grandparents cut off a leg. This continues, night after night, until the dog is dead. The following night the bogeymen break in, kill the grandparents, put the little girl in a sack and take her off to the woods.
It is the next moment in the story that Rego depicts. Rescued by a fox, whose tail catches on fire, the little girl must jump over a fire to escape. While the fox is visible skulking away across the bottom of one of the two paintings, Rego paints the little girl leaping over the flames, arms and legs outstretched, mouth open as she cries out. What we see is not three girls but one, caught in sequential action.
Rego described her heroine as having her arms flung out ‘like a sacrifice’ and indeed the tale was purportedly told to young girls to prepare them for future sacrifice. For now, as Rego would tell her own children, the little girl is free – a sentiment conveyed by the sense of wild abandon with which she imbues the works.
The Legend of the Fire was a Portuguese folk tale Rego first heard when she was a child growing up in Cascais, near Lisbon. It is the disturbing story of a little girl who lived with her grandparents and family dog. One night, the bogeymen (‘papões’) tried to break in but the dog barked and scared them away. Furious at being woken by the dog, the grandparents cut of its tail. The next night, the bogeymen re-appeared and were once again scared off by the family dog. This time the grandparents cut off a leg. This continues, night after night, until the dog is dead. The following night the bogeymen break in, kill the grandparents, put the little girl in a sack and take her off to the woods.
It is the next moment in the story that Rego depicts. Rescued by a fox, whose tail catches on fire, the little girl must jump over a fire to escape. While the fox is visible skulking away across the bottom of one of the two paintings, Rego paints the little girl leaping over the flames, arms and legs outstretched, mouth open as she cries out. What we see is not three girls but one, caught in sequential action.
Rego described her heroine as having her arms flung out ‘like a sacrifice’ and indeed the tale was purportedly told to young girls to prepare them for future sacrifice. For now, as Rego would tell her own children, the little girl is free – a sentiment conveyed by the sense of wild abandon with which she imbues the works.
In her works, Rozhan Bagheri, as an Iranian woman, has tried to create a world beyond reality and dreams by dealing directly with the sufferings of women in the Middle East and influenced by ancient Iranian stories.
Courtesy of the Artist and Workplace.
Photo by Rita Silva
Courtesy of the Artist and Workplace.
Photo by Rita Silva
Courtesy of the Artist and Workplace.
Photo by Rita Silva
Courtesy of the Artist and Workplace.
Photo by Rita Silva
Ed. 1/3 + 2AP
Painting and geography. In this series, I depart from the well-known phrase of the writer Jorge Luis Borges Local colour is a foreign invention to question whether it is possible to find out the local colour of certain specific geographical areas.
For this, I have looked at how Western artists from different eras have depicted the sky in painting, from XVIIth century to the present. These fragments of painted skies, collected from museums’ websites, are treated as colour samples that are, then, organised chromatically following the Pantone scale in the form of a grid. The information of the name of the author of the painting, the date of its execution and the title are also indicated, generating jumps in time that connect the experience of artists from different origins and generations in front of a landscape.
Addressing themes like identity, colonialism, trade, nationalism, globalisation and climate change, I seek to transcend political boundaries and highlight similarities in the human experience connected to specific landscapes and climates.
This circuit breaker panel caught my attention when I was getting a tour of a new studio space at Munzón Gallery. Elizabeth Munzón, the founder of the gallery and a peer of mine from college, had just renovated a new spot out in Cambodia Town. The panel was covered in stickers, its edges layered in coated paint. These words stood out boldly: ‘MADE IN CAMBODIA’. I quickly took a photo of it.
I incorporated that image into a domestic setting, creating a scene set between exterior and interior spaces. I painted my mother’s mantel shelf and the trinkets on it. I’ve been wanting to paint these objects for a while now and saw a collection of items that I found fitting with the phrase ‘MADE IN CAMBODIA’ – a culmination of ideas and thoughts projected into these objects.
An iconic and unique design by Marzio Cecchi for Studio Most in Italy, circa early 1970s. Made of wicker rope, the graceful and sculptural “S” form is supported by a circular base. By Marzio Cecchi, (1940-1990) Born near Florence on March 1st 1940, Marzio Cecchi comes from a design environment, his mother being Giulia Carla Cecchi, a name famous in the world of fashion with her haute couture creations paraded at Palazzo Vecchio and Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Italy. Marzio Cecchi was a famous architect from Firenze who totally designed his projects. He graduated as an Architect from the University of Florence. Marzio Cecchi was an eclectic and visionary Architect, Designer and Artist. He died in an accident in New York on January 1st 1990, leaving timeless designs and one of a kind pieces highly collectible on the market.
For Mask Off, I drew inspiration from the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. His ability to abstract the human body into something sculptural resonates with me, and I wanted to explore a similar approach in this piece. Here, the body is presented without a face, without the ‘mask’ of identity or expression. The face, often the most recognisable and personal part of the human form, is absent. It’s not about the person – it’s about form and structure. Symmetry has this power to transform something organic, like the human body, into something architectural or designed.
By focusing on the arms and torso and removing the face, I’ve reduced the body to a collection of shapes and forms. Playing with soft shadows and smooth tones, I wanted to highlight the sculptural quality of the figure, making the limbs and curves feel less like anatomy and more like an arrangement of lines and planes. Seeing the body not as flesh, but as a work of design.
Photo: Pietro Cisani
Dimensions excluding plinth: 193 x 55.9 x 30.5 cm
Dimensions:
100X180 cm, eight of each 35X40cm
© Nigel Cooke, courtesy Pace Gallery
(Framed: 126.3 x 239.2 x 7 cm)
Edition 2 of 5 + 1 AP
Signed and dated
Edition 1 of 5 + 1 AP
Signed and dated
‘I weld paint in order to try and bring us back inside of our bodies,’ Rooney explains of her uniquely physical approach to making a painting. Jogging daily to her studio to summon the energy she needs, she moves her body constantly around the canvas as she works – shuffling, reaching, crawling, bending – the result of which is a paint surface made up of huge variety of different marks. The energy of this surface is palpable, disorientating and compelling. Rooney describes herself as ‘a construction worker’, building up layers of paint over a long period of time only to ‘excavate’ (sand it off), when the rhythm of the painting requires. Colour becomes her ‘collaborator’, punctuating and articulating the canvas like a musical rhythm. The present work is one of Rooney's so-called 'wingspan paintings', the canvas measurements cut according to the wingspan of an average woman.
Rooney, who danced herself, frequently presents her work alongside dance that has been choreographed in response to it. The titles of her works reference memories of place or times of day and the palette always responds to the season in which the work was made. The bluey green undertones of this painting echo the darker days of January, when this painting began its life. Describing it as one of her ‘night paintings’, Rooney adds small touches of intense pink and yellow paint that suggest city lights emerging from the velvety darkness.
Signed, titled, and dated verso
Born in Hawai‘i in 1927 to Japanese Buddhist parents, Ralph Iwamoto witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor as a teenager in 1941. Like many other artists of his generation who grew up in Hawai‘i, Iwamoto served in World War II and afterwards moved to New York City in 1948. There, he enrolled in the Art Students League with the support of the GI Bill and studied with abstract artists Vaclav Vytlacil and Byron Browne, immersing himself in the dynamic milieu of the 1950s art scene. Iwamoto’s early work leaned heavily towards organic forms, muted colors, and techniques found in traditional Japanese art. His first exhibition in New York took place in 1955, alongside Louise Nevelson and Alfred Leslie. Three years later, his work was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s annual.
From 1957 to 1960, Iwamoto worked as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art, which allowed him the opportunity to spend long periods of time viewing surrealist and other modern paintings. His work from the 1950s reflect a deep interest in surrealist imagery and ideas inspired by the works of Wifredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo, and Pablo Picasso. Trafficking in abstract organic forms of flora and fauna, Iwamoto’s paintings from this period evoke an “invented taxonomy of kingdom hybrids,” as noted by curator Jeffrey Wechsler. The artist’s hybrid animal-vegetation figures nod to the tropical diversity of the artist’s birthplace as well as perhaps his time working with orchids at a florist’s shop. This series of works synthesize the geometric abstraction of Cubism, the surrealist style, and the flat, planar characteristics of traditional Japanese art.
While working as a guard at the Museum of Modern Art, Iwamoto formed close friendships with artists Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, and Dan Flavin, who would later go on to become the core group of the Minimalism movement. Influenced by their stylistic and formal innovations, Iwamoto began experimenting with pure color and form and rigorous geometricism in the 1960s. Through Minimalism, Iwamoto saw the potential for a method by which he could explore and express a universal truth and in the early 1970s, he began to work specifically with the octagon as his “shape within a grid.” Inspired by his friend LeWitt’s right angle and left angle compositions, as well as the work of Piet Mondrian and Josef Albers, Iwamoto mined ways to syncopate a grid through seemingly infinite permutations of an octagon and a minimal color palette. He often worked with groups of four (which he terms “QuarOctagons”), eight (“Octagon Concepts”), and sixteen octagons (“Factors”) in grid format and went on to use the octagon in increasingly complex arrangements. In 1989, St. Mary’s College held a retrospective of his octagon paintings. In the later decades of his career, his style shifted to more kaleidoscopic compositions. He died in 2013.
Edition 1 of 5 + 1 AP
Signed and dated
This work is titled Papayo, which is a colloquial way to refer to the papaya tree in Colombia. This work constitutes Jhonatan’s tribute to the flora and architecture of his native country. His work often references the trauma left in the wake of Colombian Civil War while also exploring the beauty that surrounds.
Framed dimensions: 113.03 x 86.36 x 5.08 cm
Each work documents the colours used in an industrial powder coating facility in the course of a day, therefore each work is original with no edition. 24 works in the series currently exist and the number of works in the series will slowly increase in coming years.
Each work documents the colours used in an industrial powder coating facility in the course of a day, therefore each work is original with no edition. 24 works in the series currently exist and the number of works in the series will slowly increase in coming years.
Each work documents the colours used in an industrial powder coating facility in the course of a day, therefore each work is original with no edition. 24 works in the series currently exist and the number of works in the series will slowly increase in coming years.
Each work documents the colours used in an industrial powder coating facility in the course of a day, therefore each work is original with no edition. 24 works in the series currently exist and the number of works in the series will slowly increase in coming years.
Each work documents the colours used in an industrial powder coating facility in the course of a day, therefore each work is original with no edition. 24 works in the series currently exist and the number of works in the series will slowly increase in coming years.
Each work documents the colours used in an industrial powder coating facility in the course of a day, therefore each work is original with no edition. 24 works in the series currently exist and the number of works in the series will slowly increase in coming years.
With Praise the Lord, I wanted to play with how we see and interpret the body. At first glance, the feet resemble hands pressed together in prayer, a gesture of devotion. But as you look closer, you realise they’re actually feet, which immediately challenges that initial perception. The title reinforces this connection between the physicality of the body and a spiritual act.
As I carefully looked after my plants, I began to recognize my role as a caregiver and realized that the relationship between a creator and their work is also one of nurturing and being nurtured. This year marked my first spring with a balcony and my first attempt at growing flowers. Before the frost, I planted over 100 tulip and daffodil bulbs, and when spring arrived, I added lilies, violets, jasmine vines, geraniums, clematis, begonias, and hydrangeas.
Reflecting on the variety of flowers on my balcony, I noticed that the plants I had unconsciously chosen closely mirrored those found in New York’s street flowerbeds. It was the first time I felt a deep sense of synchronicity in tending to plants, as though a tropical soul, through the act of gardening, was slowly becoming part of this temperate city.
As I carefully looked after my plants, I began to recognize my role as a caregiver and realized that the relationship between a creator and their work is also one of nurturing and being nurtured. This year marked my first spring with a balcony and my first attempt at growing flowers. Before the frost, I planted over 100 tulip and daffodil bulbs, and when spring arrived, I added lilies, violets, jasmine vines, geraniums, clematis, begonias, and hydrangeas.
Reflecting on the variety of flowers on my balcony, I noticed that the plants I had unconsciously chosen closely mirrored those found in New York’s street flowerbeds. It was the first time I felt a deep sense of synchronicity in tending to plants, as though a tropical soul, through the act of gardening, was slowly becoming part of this temperate city.
"I make large drawings and paintings about everyday life, focusing on people, animals, and nature to create deeply personal allegories. Increasingly, I’m drawn to presenting these images on a gigantic scale, often with life size figures—referencing the grandeur of full-length oil portraits, frescoes, and tapestries once reserved for aristocrats and stately homes. This creates a dialogue between the grand and the accessible, which relates to my use of affordable materials like charcoal and paper, a financial necessity.
The high contrast in tone, movement, and noise reflects my cyclical and fluctuating mood patterns, as I aim to capture the rhythms of people and the world, striving for tenderness, specificity, and sincerity. I want to make the everyday feel melodic and monumental.
I’m gradually developing larger works using traditional methods involving extensive preparation and multiple studies from life. My surroundings serve directly as settings for my figurative work, ensuring a strong connection to real places I’ve experienced."
Legs that extend, bend and kick erupt from the surface, a writhing mass of movement interspersed with rippling fabric and organic forms. It is as though some kind of dynamic metamorphosis is enacted in front of our eyes – what Kneebone refers to as ‘the pulse of life.’ Astonishingly, this illusion of continuous movement is created through porcelain, a medium that although malleable when wet, hardens to become one of the most brittle. Kneebone pushes the medium of porcelain to its limits. This work partly collapsed in the kiln, losing some of its verticality, but finding beauty and movement in the result, this then becomes an important part of how she depicts the body moving in time and space.
This sculpture was originally made for an exhibition and performance project entitled The Dance Project (2018–19). The pencil drawings show Kneebone’s continued interest in how to portray a body moving through space to suggest duration. Elongated limbs that have multiplied and fused, feet touching feet, fall through the air. Our eye sees movement as we follow the shapes of the tumbling, twisting, arched forms.
Legs that extend, bend and kick erupt from the surface, a writhing mass of movement interspersed with rippling fabric and organic forms. It is as though some kind of dynamic metamorphosis is enacted in front of our eyes – what Kneebone refers to as ‘the pulse of life.’ Astonishingly, this illusion of continuous movement is created through porcelain, a medium that although malleable when wet, hardens to become one of the most brittle. Kneebone pushes the medium of porcelain to its limits. This work partly collapsed in the kiln, losing some of its verticality, but finding beauty and movement in the result, this then becomes an important part of how she depicts the body moving in time and space.
This sculpture was originally made for an exhibition and performance project entitled The Dance Project (2018–19). The pencil drawings show Kneebone’s continued interest in how to portray a body moving through space to suggest duration. Elongated limbs that have multiplied and fused, feet touching feet, fall through the air. Our eye sees movement as we follow the shapes of the tumbling, twisting, arched forms.
Sheet: 31.3 cm × 43.2 cm
Framed: 45.4 × 57.5 × 3.8 cm
To create this new work, Manning asked Sara Mearns, Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet, to sit for her. The dancers of NYCB are renowned for their dynamism, athleticism and speed and these qualities are evident in Manning’s fiercely energetic and fluid handling of paint. Manning was drawn to what she describes as Mearns’s ‘rare combination of strength and delicacy’ in movement. At the centre of the composition, she paints the serene face of Mearns, a still point amidst the centrifugal force of her own body, which Manning suggests is arching, bending, folding and reaching around her.
Flickering white highlights imply a body in constant motion and rapid, swirling brushstrokes prevent our eye from settling. To look is to be caught up in the explosive action that is unfolding in front of us. The title of the work, Staccato, adds to the image the sound of a sharp, punctuated musical rhythm and evokes a sense of duration.
In 2023, Manning collaborated with choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon, designing sets for a new ballet for New York City Ballet entitled From You Within Me. These graphite ‘gesture’ studies, as Manning refers to them, exhibited here for first time, were made in the studios of New York City Ballet and were an attempt to record the continuous, rapid movement of dancers’ bodies at the very moment that Wheeldon found the shapes and vocabulary he desired. As Wheeldon coaxed new shapes from the dancers, so Manning tried to capture that process on paper, describing the resulting sketches as ‘a visual metronome.’
Unframed dimensions: 77.8 x 57.2 cm
Framed dimensions: 10.5 x 78.5
© Sholto Blissett. Courtesy the Artist and Hannah Barry Gallery.
Signed on reverse
Unique.
Image credit: Photography Lucy Dawkins. Courtesy of the artist.
Unique.
Image credit: Photography Lucy Dawkins. Courtesy of the artist
Unique.
Image credit: Photography Lucy Dawkins. Courtesy of the artist.
148 cm x 107 cm each panel (framed)
Unique.
Image credit: Photography Lucy Dawkins. Courtesy of the artist
148 cm x 107 cm each panel (framed)
I was thinking about how much I still need my mom to hold me and how important that is to me. I will never let that go. This care between one woman and another. I mean, yeah, I am her baby daughter, but I'm a grown-ass woman. When I’m at my lowest, overwhelmed by uncontrollable
feelings, my mother’s lap and arms are among the few places that can calm me down. Then I thought about my sisters. I have three (older) Bong Srey. I thought it would be nice for them to hold each other, like how my mom does for me. To note, my mother rarely gave her loving affection to all of us. Her struggles kept her from spending that kind of time with us. There was a lot of miscommunication growing up, but we all understood she was our caring mother. So with that said, between us sisters, showing affection was also rare.
I had asked my sisters and my mom to pose for my work, that I would like to paint a composition in relation to mom, but in the end what I captured was the relationship between my sisters. I had them wear the Khmer garment that our mother had gotten tailored for us and used my parent’s backyard as the setting. I had each sister, one at a time, lie and rest her head on our mother’s lap, sitting on the straw mat while mother sat upright on a bench. Each one exhaled in comfort, eyes closing, and energy humming as I took all the photo references I needed. One sister even said, “This feels so nice.” Once that was done, I had them do the same with each other. My sisters used to be so close, but as we got older, it became harder for some reason. I blame miscommunication. No doubt that these two love each other, the ones in the painting. They’ve never left each other's side for their entire lives. And what I painted was how it was, the relationship still between the two. Bong Vann, in the blue, is the elder, and she is very much like my mom, while Bong Dah sits in consolation, a need we all share. I have another Bong Srey I would have loved to capture with the others, but the tension between them remains, and I could not convince her to join this experience of solace.
I was thinking about how much I still need my mom to hold me and how important that is to me. I will never let that go – this care between one woman and another. When I’m at my lowest, overwhelmed by uncontrollable feelings, my mother, her lap and arms, are among the few places that can calm me down. Then I thought about my sisters. I have three (older) Bong Srey. I thought it would be nice for them to hold each other, like how my mom does for me. To note, my mother rarely gave her loving affection to all of us. Her struggles kept her from spending that kind of time with us. There was a lot of miscommunication growing up, but we all understood she was our caring mother. So with that said, between us sisters, showing affection was also rare.
I had asked my sisters and my mom to pose for my work, that I would like to paint a composition in relation to mom, but in the end what I captured was the relationship between my sisters. I had them wear the Khmer garment that our mother had gotten tailored for us and used my parents’ backyard as the setting. I had each sister, one at a time, rest her head on our mother’s lap, sitting on the straw mat while mother sat upright on a bench. Each one exhaled in comfort, eyes closing, and energy humming as I took all the photo references I needed. One sister even said, ‘This feels so nice.’ Once that was done, I had them do the same with each other. My sisters used to be so close, but as we got older, it became harder for some reason. I blame miscommunication. No doubt that these two love each other, the ones in the painting. They’ve never left each other's side for their entire lives. And what I painted was how it was, the relationship still between the two. Bong Vann, in the blue, is the elder, and she is very much like my mom, while Bong Dah sits in consolation, a need we all share. I have another Bong Srey I would have loved to capture with the others, but the tension between them remains, and I could not convince her to join this experience of solace.
Framed dimensions: 67.6 x 85.4 x 4.5 cm
Signed and dated recto
Spectra offers a subtle alternative to the Signature Stripe, capturing the evolution of this iconic motif. Rectangular blocks house spectrums of colourful silk that appear elevated against a sumptuous Tibetan wool base.
The champion of eclectic British fashion, Paul Smith, describes his unique and much-coveted style as ‘classic with a twist’. His creations are infused with a sense of humour which is beautifully married with a love of tradition; his unmistakable Englishness is augmented by the unexpected and the eccentric. One of the first fashion designers to collaborate with The Rug Company, Paul’s confident, bright rug designs can transform a room and many have become undoubted icons of design.
Price on application. This item is made to order to a bespoke size.
To create this new work, Manning asked Sara Mearns, Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet, to sit for her. The dancers of NYCB are renowned for their dynamism, athleticism and speed and these qualities are evident in Manning’s fiercely energetic and fluid handling of paint. Manning was drawn to what she describes as Mearns’s ‘rare combination of strength and delicacy’ in movement. At the centre of the composition, she paints the serene face of Mearns, a still point amidst the centrifugal force of her own body, which Manning suggests is arching, bending, folding and reaching around her.
Flickering white highlights imply a body in constant motion and rapid, swirling brushstrokes prevent our eye from settling. To look is to be caught up in the explosive action that is unfolding in front of us. The title of the work, Staccato, adds to the image the sound of a sharp, punctuated musical rhythm and evokes a sense of duration.
In 2023, Manning collaborated with choreographer, Christopher Wheeldon, designing sets for a new ballet for New York City Ballet entitled From You Within Me. These graphite ‘gesture’ studies, as Manning refers to them, exhibited here for first time, were made in the studios of New York City Ballet and were an attempt to record the continuous, rapid movement of dancers’ bodies at the very moment that Wheeldon found the shapes and vocabulary he desired. As Wheeldon coaxed new shapes from the dancers, so Manning tried to capture that process on paper, describing the resulting sketches as ‘a visual metronome.’
Dimensions excluding plinth: 92.7 x 10.2 x 13.3 cm
© Barbara Walker. All rights reserved, DACS 2025. Photo: Tiwani Contemporary
From the “Show and Tell (2008-2015)” series. For further information, see here.
Unframed Dimensions: 88 x 60 cm
Framed Dimensions: 107 x 84 cm
Edition 4+2AP
Edition 1 of 5 + 1 AP
Signed and dated
From the I ROT BEFORE I RIPEN series.
In The Cheerleader, I wanted to recreate a cheer pose, upright and strong, and explore how it transforms the body into something symbolic yet ambiguous. Without the arms and legs to complete the pose, the body becomes an abstracted form. This cropping brings a focus to the work’s texture and details rather than its action. What’s striking to me about this piece of vellum is the heavy vein work on the right side. That veining tells a story – it’s a trace of the calf’s life, indicating that it died lying on that side of its body. That detail feels important to me, as it brings forth thoughts of reality and mortality, even though the rest of the composition plays with abstraction. The veins aren’t just marks, but a reminder of life and death. There’s a tension between strength and vulnerability – the pose suggests confidence and power, but the marks on the vellum speak to the body’s history and its inevitable fragility.
Shu Okamoto is an emerging Japanese painter exploring the potential of contemporary Nihonga, a traditional Japanese painting, by focusing on its distinctive sense of perspective, composition, use of negative space, and material characteristics such as framing, technique, and texture.
In The Throne, the legs are positioned symmetrically and frame the chair at the centre, acting as both a throne and a barrier. By blocking the genitals with the chair, I wanted to introduce a sense of restraint or mystery, which contrasts with the vulnerability of the exposed legs and hands. I feel as though the symmetry gives this piece a sense of order and calm, even though there’s a playful, almost absurd quality to the way the body is positioned on the chair.
Diptych, each Sheet: 55.8 x 38.5 cm (unframed)
Idris Khan’s diptych, created on handmade Korean Hanji paper, showcases the artist's mastery of layering and mark-making.
The intricate texture of Hanji—renowned for its durability and preservation qualities—serves as the ideal foundation for Khan's meticulous process. Each sheet is an individual expression, painstakingly crafted over months to achieve the perfect surface. This traditional Korean paper, derived from mulberry trees, brings its own history and materiality into conversation with Khan’s marks.
The drawings evoke the gestural energy and poetic rhythm reminiscent of Cy Twombly, with handwriting-like strokes that build organically across the surface. Each mark, carefully considered, contributes to an overarching sense of tension and dynamism. The interplay between the paper's natural texture and Khan’s layered charcoal gestures creates a palpable depth, drawing the viewer into a meditative space.
The making process reflects an intimate exchange: the handmade quality of Hanji, shaped by a Korean master craftsman, interacts with the artist's deliberate yet intuitive strokes. The heightened sensitivity to each laid mark imbues the diptych with a subtle magic, as if the paper and drawing are in constant conversation. Through this process, the diptych captures both the fragility and resilience of materials and emotions, offering a contemporary reflection on tradition, time, and the transformative power of art.
Idris Khan’s diptych, created on handmade Korean Hanji paper, showcases the artist's mastery of layering and mark-making.
The intricate texture of Hanji—renowned for its durability and preservation qualities—serves as the ideal foundation for Khan's meticulous process. Each sheet is an individual expression, painstakingly crafted over months to achieve the perfect surface. This traditional Korean paper, derived from mulberry trees, brings its own history and materiality into conversation with Khan’s marks.
The drawings evoke the gestural energy and poetic rhythm reminiscent of Cy Twombly, with handwriting-like strokes that build organically across the surface. Each mark, carefully considered, contributes to an overarching sense of tension and dynamism. The interplay between the paper's natural texture and Khan’s layered charcoal gestures creates a palpable depth, drawing the viewer into a meditative space.
The making process reflects an intimate exchange: the handmade quality of Hanji, shaped by a Korean master craftsman, interacts with the artist's deliberate yet intuitive strokes. The heightened sensitivity to each laid mark imbues the diptych with a subtle magic, as if the paper and drawing are in constant conversation. Through this process, the diptych captures both the fragility and resilience of materials and emotions, offering a contemporary reflection on tradition, time, and the transformative power of art.
Work sold as a diptych
Idris Khan’s diptych, created on handmade Korean Hanji paper, showcases the artist's mastery of layering and mark-making.
The intricate texture of Hanji—renowned for its durability and preservation qualities—serves as the ideal foundation for Khan's meticulous process. Each sheet is an individual expression, painstakingly crafted over months to achieve the perfect surface. This traditional Korean paper, derived from mulberry trees, brings its own history and materiality into conversation with Khan’s marks.
The drawings evoke the gestural energy and poetic rhythm reminiscent of Cy Twombly, with handwriting-like strokes that build organically across the surface. Each mark, carefully considered, contributes to an overarching sense of tension and dynamism. The interplay between the paper's natural texture and Khan’s layered charcoal gestures creates a palpable depth, drawing the viewer into a meditative space.
The making process reflects an intimate exchange: the handmade quality of Hanji, shaped by a Korean master craftsman, interacts with the artist's deliberate yet intuitive strokes. The heightened sensitivity to each laid mark imbues the diptych with a subtle magic, as if the paper and drawing are in constant conversation. Through this process, the diptych captures both the fragility and resilience of materials and emotions, offering a contemporary reflection on tradition, time, and the transformative power of art.
Work sold as a diptych
Please note that dimensions include hanging threads
Main panel dimensions: 58 x 50 cm
Courtesy of the artist
In Turning the other Cheek, I wanted to focus on the curves and natural flow of the body, using the composition to create a sense of subtle movement. The spine, snaking upward in the composition, was a key focus for me. Its soft curve feels almost like a line of energy running through the piece, connecting the lower body to the upper. I wanted the dark background to act almost as a counterpoint, anchoring the composition and framing the body’s curves. There’s a sense of quiet tension in the movement, as though the body is caught mid-shift, drawing attention to how the skin folds and stretches.
Tarini Sethi's sculptures take us into a world of her own making, challenging the normative standards of form and gender. Tarini’s figures reflect utopian worlds where bodily structures are malleable and fluid. Tarini is interested in the blurring of boundaries--between erotic and abject, human and non human--creating a world that’s ultimately defined by love and acceptance. Her work responds to the culture of sexual repression and gender inequality she encounters in India, creating universes that dare to imagine otherwise. This work marks Tarini's first inclusion of enamel in sculpture, bringing color into conversation with her bold use of stainless steel.
In these works, I’m exploring the breaking down of traditional boundaries and the idea of agency. They reflect how societal expectations placed on women can be unraveled, challenging old norms and offering new perspectives on freedom and identity.
In these works, I’m exploring the breaking down of traditional boundaries and the idea of agency. They reflect how societal expectations placed on women can be unraveled, challenging old norms and offering new perspectives on freedom and identity.
Two poised, young dancers stand before us, their gaze arrested as if concentrating on a teacher's corrections mid-class. Captured in a lively, naturalistic manner, these charcoal studies are in fact drawn from the artist’s imagination, to be used in her paintings, as Berrío explains, like characters in a novel or play. Although she has long been fascinated by dance, a remark by the American abstract artist Stanley Whitney about his need to ‘become the music’ when painting inspired Berrío to begin making work her own work around the subject.
Two poised, young dancers stand before us, their gaze arrested as if concentrating on a teacher's corrections mid-class. Captured in a lively, naturalistic manner, these charcoal studies are in fact drawn from the artist’s imagination, to be used in her paintings, as Berrío explains, like characters in a novel or play. Although she has long been fascinated by dance, a remark by the American abstract artist Stanley Whitney about his need to ‘become the music’ when painting inspired Berrío to begin making work her own work around the subject.
Edition 1 of 5 + 1 AP
Signed and dated
Edition of 5 (#2/5)
In 1944 Baušķenieks was forced by the German occupiers to join the war efforts. He performed hard manual labor in Germany and Holland, and after the war ended, he was captured by American forces and tasked with clearing rubble in Dieppe, France. It wasn't until 1946 that he could return home, only to discover that his mother and sisters had emigrated to the USA. This experience solidified his beliefs as a convinced pacifist.
His contempt for warfare is vividly expressed in this painting, where a small putti urinates on a massive rocket crashing to the ground. Rather than depicting the horrors of war, the work chooses to ridicule and express disdain for the entire ordeal.
This is a family photograph of my eldest brother and sister as children. I was thinking about how much time has passed and how tiny they used to be. Now there’s a second generation here – my sister’s babies are fully grown and are young adults attending college now. My sister and brother can hardly remember these childhood days.
Inspired by the Dionysian, euphoric experience of dancing in nightclubs, McGurn’s paintings are an attempt to capture this liberating experience. ‘I’m not depicting dance, but I’m painting the way I would dance,’ she explains. Lost in the moment, the central female figure is painted in fragmentary form, multiple times across the canvas, as though seen through a white, flashing strobe light. Using washes of colour and dynamic, fluid and linear brushstrokes that violate the boundaries of the canvas itself, the artist pulls us in amongst the entangled, intimate, dancing bodies she paints.
figure: 80 x 32 x 36 cm
cup: 7 x 9.5 x 10 cm
Dimensions excluding plinth: 118.1 x 16.5 x 16.5 cm
Courtesy the artist, Cob Gallery, London and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photo: Ben Westoby
Courtesy the artist, Cob Gallery, London and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photo: Ben Westoby
Courtesy the artist, Cob Gallery, London and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photo: Ben Westoby
Courtesy the artist, Cob Gallery, London and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photo: Ben Westoby
Courtesy the artist, Cob Gallery, London and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photo: Ben Westoby
Charcoal lines and multicoloured oil marks suggest traces of energy left behind by the human body. Informed by her own training as a dancer and in martial arts, Wang’s paintings are abstract records of the way the body moves through space and time, and we scrutinise these strokes and lines to try and understand the pathways the body has created.
The title alludes to a story told by the 4th-century BCE Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou, commonly known as Zhuangzi. In his eponymous text, Zhuangzi fell asleep and dreamt he was a butterfly; when he awoke, he couldn’t tell if he was Zhuangzi dreaming of a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of Zhuangzi. It is a story that is meant to illustrate the change of consciousness that comes with the transformation from reality to illusion and it reminds philosophers to question even their most basic assumptions.
Wang’s preference for large canvases evokes a boundless, endless space. ‘I want to translate my bodily experience on to the canvas’, Wang says, but in the process of painting, ‘my perception of the body disappears and I feel I can fly…. It is a state of complete freedom.’
