48 & 56 Brook Street
THE AGE OF NOT BELIEVING
by Gabriel Eden James
A magical installation of hand-crafted miniatures
22nd August – 28th September (every day 10am to 10pm)
Window, 48 Brook Street, W1K 5DR
The Age of Not Believing gave viewers a glimpse into the magical world of artist Gabriel Eden James. Describing himself as ‘somebody who never truly grew up’, James creates detailed miniature worlds which prompt reactions of childlike wonder.
The installation highlighted a different kind of human degeneration - the transition from childhood to adulthood - and explored how this might affect our acceptance of reality today. The artist believes that as we grow into an adult society, the concept of power deviates from the innocence of magic. Instead, it takes on the form of a weapon that so few have the ability and humanity to wield, resulting in war, crime and control.
As someone who never experienced this change of outlook, James has always wondered at what point do children shed their ability to see the magic in things and as the saying goes, ‘grow up’. At the age of 7 James created another world as a coping mechanism for the rejection he faced within his younger life. Now he encourages the viewer to reclaim their ability to imagine a world led by the power of magic, through these highly detailed miniature creations.
About Gabriel Eden James
Gabriel Eden James is a self-trained multi-disciplinary artist, specialising in architectural and interior miniature art. Based in his London studio, he combines an array of artistic skills spanning design, carpentry, sculpture and painting. James has spent the past 5 years perfecting his craft to create highly detailed replicas of architectural monuments and fictional designs, from museum grade historical landmarks to country cottage drinks cabinets.
WAYSIDE
by Edward Sutcliffe
A new painting depicting an area of wasteland behind the artist’s studio in Ladbroke Grove. Wayside presents this landscape through the changing seasons. Sutcliffe dissects his observations and glues them back together, forming a rich, saturated reflection of nature and its temporality.
21 July — 4th September (everyday 10am - 10pm)
Window, 56 Brook Street, W1K 5NE
Sutcliffe is best known for his award-winning photorealist portraits with a conceptual core - mischievous, irreverent and spirited. However, over the Covid-19 lockdowns he become dispirited with his previous methods and style in a world that didn’t feel particularly jovial, so he began to work in a new direction. Driven by a desire to make paintings that were more honest; he stopped the habit of working from photographs, refocussing his paintings around the direct observation of real things. Working directly from life, the artist found what he saw beguiling in its beauty and unsettling in its complexity.
Making paintings based on these observations, Sutcliffe’s new work moulds this intense scrutiny into beautiful yet neurotic paintings that hold a mirror up to his world. At 2.4m x 1.5m, Wayside is a large painting that confronts the audience not only with its scale but also with its scope. Forensic, chaotic and beautiful, it is formed of small pieces of canvas, painted from observation outside during the autumn, winter, spring and summer of the past year. These individual pieces were then glued to the main artwork in his studio - combined they reveal a living landscape which morphs and evolves over time.
In the words of the artist: “Unfiltered observation is a pure heavenly joy! Painting is essentially a prosaic tool, invented to depict life; all I want to do is describe things that I see.”
About Edward Sutcliffe
Edward Sutcliffe (born 1978) is a British painter based in London. He is known for his photorealist portraits and more recent observational still life paintings. Sutcliffe graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth with a degree in Art with Art History in 1999 and received a post-graduate diploma in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2006.
Edward has exhibited work at a number of galleries in London, Dubai and Seoul, including The National Portrait Gallery, The Mall Galleries and The Dubai Arts Centre, and has been selected for the BP Portrait Award annual exhibition on 8 occasions.
OCEANIC FEELING
by Margo Trushina
A site-specific installation that addressed the current environmental challenges the world faces.
24 June — 24 July (everyday 10am - 10pm)
Window 48 Brook Street, W1K 5DR
Envisaging the window as a large aquarium, Oceanic Feeling was a site-specific installation that invited the viewer to engage with their emotions, whilst acknowledging and addressing the current environmental challenges the world faces.
Artist Margo Trushina creates fictional environments and sculptures that reflect habitats and bodies affected by climate change, eliciting an emotional and ethical response.
Oceanic Feeling grappled with the Anthropocene, taking inspiration from the entangled and intertwined relationship between humans and the environment. Encouraging us to take accountability for our impact on climate change, Trushina attempted to reveal the implications of our actions upon the bodies of others: both humans and other animals, oceanic, geological and meteorological.
In a 1927 letter to Sigmund Freud, Romain Rolland coined the phrase “Oceanic Feeling” to refer to a sensation of 'eternity', a feeling of "being at one" with the external world as a whole. According to Rolland, this feeling is the source of all the spiritual energy that permeates in various religious systems, and one may justifiably call oneself religious on the basis of this oceanic feeling alone, even if one renounces every belief and every illusion.
About Margo Trushina
London-based artist Margo Trushina is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Arts, MA Sculpture course. She has exhibited at Lewisham Arthouse and Standpoint Gallery in London as well as internationally including Germany, China, Italy and Mexico. Her work explores the intersection of bioart and new feminist materialist ethics.
DO NOT DISTURB
by Jennifer Louise Martin
Multi disciplinary artist Jennifer Louise Martin created an installation, ahead of the premiere of her first film 'Hear My Cry’.
Thursday 14th April – Friday 6th May, 10am-10pm
'DO NOT DISTURB' depicted a theatrical room from a short film set, which was made by the artist during the pandemic whilst recovering from postpartum depression. The installation invited onlookers to be a fly on the wall, and on set days the installation also featured the artist herself dressed up in character in the window.
Monday 25th April 5-8pm
Tuesday 26th April 5-8pm
Tuesday 3rd May 6-10pm
‘Hear My Cry’ was an extension of the narrative of her large-scale paintings, which explore the expression of emotion and the female psyche. Based on the artists’ own personal memoirs, emotions, intrusive thoughts and recurrent dreams that she encountered during her suffering with postnatal depression (PND). The emphasis was on the new mother trying to maintain the ideals of a social construct, yet tormented by the trickery of her mind and her symptoms of the destructive illness.
The film won the award for best short film at the New York Movie Awards and an honorary mention at The Florence Film Festival, it premiered at the Everyman King’s Cross on 17 May, 2022.
In aid of Post-Natal Depression Awareness and Support: www.pandasfoundation.org.uk
About Jennifer Louise Martin
Jennifer Louise Martin is a visual artist from London. Martin creates collages using magazine cuttings as her source material to inform her large-scale mixed media paintings, which are charged with an underlying psychological process depicted through the materiality and language of paint. Martin is influenced by fashion and film photography and is an avid collector of vintage patterns and textiles, exploring hand embroidery, knitting and the manipulation of fabrics in her work.
Having studied Psychology, the human psyche and expression of emotion plays an important role in her work, highlighting how the conflict between our sub-conscious and conscious cognitive process can influence our contemporary being.
STRANGE FRUIT
by Alannah Currie
Art of an explosive nature. Video work and chair (2016)
15th March - 11th April
The chair was originally one of eight colourful RIOT chairs that Miss Pokeno built to celebrate the courage of women protesters from Suffragettes onwards.
“I use chairs as bodies to create uncomfortable narratives. I build them using traditional English upholstery methods from frames I design myself and then often ceremoniously destroy creating chaos that produces a new narrative as well as a new form. By removing the outer fabric of this chair and exposing the calico it is reminiscent of the Cucking stools used for the punishment of disorderly women in old England. Women who were labelled as witches or scolds were stripped down to their smocks, placed on stools and then publicly humiliated.
“By first hanging and then exploding this chair I identify as both the victim and perpetrator - The chair no longer becomes a place of comfort and ease”.
Filmed in Old Womans' Woods, East Sussex.
About Alannah Currie
Alannah Currie is a London based artist who makes work using luxurious veneers around uncomfortable and provocative narratives. She works under the name Miss Pokeno.