29th May - 20th June, 2025.
Phantomsequor—from phantom, meaning ghost, and sequor, Latin for “I follow”—brings together the work of contemporary artists with their long-deceased predecessors. New commissions and selected works by Issi Nash, Tom Hardwick Allan, Arthur Poujois, Thomas Pellerey Grogan, Eva Yates, Archie Fooks-Smith and Sofya Shpurova are shown alongside works by Leonard Beck, Christoph Nathe, Edmund Kesting, Jean Fautrier, and Luise Danker. The result is a subtle dialogue in materials, techniques, and sensibilities - echoes across centuries that blur the boundary between past and present.
Several of the living artists in the show revive pre-modern techniques: Issi Nash for example works with egg tempera and gold-leaf gilding to conjure faux-historic townscapes, in line with a classical visual language. While Tom Hardwick Allan, Archie Fooks-Smith and Arthur Poujois translate their specific mediums of wood carving, hand embroidery, and stained glass into more contemporary visual idioms. In contrast to both of these pre-modern technical approaches (though similar in outcome) Thomas Pellerey Grogan uses modern resin casting methods to create computer monitor stands adorned with classical vase motifs; like the vessels they echo—once functional, now ornamental—his stands reject utility, acting as fictitious contemporary relics. Sofya Shpurova and Eva Yates, meanwhile, evoke the phantom more directly, portraying haunting figures that stare directly into the viewer’s gaze.
Though not framed as explicit pairings, the historical artists were selected for their points of connection with the contemporary contributors. Leonard Beck’s woodcuts relate to Tom Hardwick Allan’s use of woodcarving in his prints and sculptures; Christoph Nathe’s detailed miniatures and landscapes find affinities with both Archie Fooks-Smith’s and Issi Nash’s works respectively. Jean Fautrier’s drawing style resonates with Arthur Poujois’s visual approach, while the romantic and visionary qualities in the work of Luise Danker parallel Sofya Shpurova’s paintings. Eva Yates’s figurative pieces echo the bodily focus found in works by M.P. Phillips and finally a more formal connection appears between Edmund Kesting’s translucent photographic compositions and the resin casts of Thomas Pellerey Grogan, linking their shared interest in surface and immateriality.
Through these constellations, Phantomsequor offers not a chronology, but an atmosphere connecting artists across time.
Related exhibitions:
Jean Fautrier - Alchemy in Printmaking
Archie Fooks - Smith Graphite Drawings
Archie Fooks - Smith Absolute Reality Relative
Luise Danker Fairy tales
Christoph Nathe Romantic Landscapes in the 18th century
Incunabula and Early Illuminated Woodcuts in Northern Europe
