Mangia Mangia
I first came across Three Colt Gallery in London’s Docklands when my friend Adam Hennessey had his solo exhibition Happy Toast there a couple of years ago. Since then I have got to know it well and have shown in a few group exhibitions there since. It’s a great, friendly space and doubles up as both a café and a gallery.
It seemed like an obvious place, therefore, to show a series of food-based paintings which I’ve been developing over the past couple of years.
This series, all taken from photographs of meals I’ve eaten, is a brand-new collection of 33 oil paintings on paper pulp on cardboard panels. It marks my first solo show using these materials.
Starting as experiments using ceramic and then cast resin, I’ve discovered that paper pulp offers what I need. Cheap, readily available and pleasingly lo-fi, pulp begins as a squelchy material which is easily manipulated and which can be made to take on all manner of different forms: from smooth glass to clay pots whilst also looking and feeling itself like paint. When dry, it becomes rock-hard and a surface onto which paint can easily be applied.
The dates of the exhibition were selected to coincide with this year’s Transcontinental Race: an annual self-supported bike race which crosses the European continent and which I attempted unsuccessfully in 2023 and successfully last summer with a 25-day schlep from Santiago de Compostela in Spain to Constanta in Romania. During this trip, I maintained my habit of photographing all I was eating and drinking (as is common practice) and these photographs became the direct source-material for making these 33 new paintings. The name of the show, an Italian expression which literally translates as ‘Eat, eat’’ could also be translated as ‘Dig in!’ and is the name of the Italian restaurant which I ate in after finishing my trans-European cycle and which I stayed in an apartment above for my three days in the city. Furthermore, a large proportion of my route took me down Italy’s boot from Turin to Bari.
Exhibited together, this group of artworks will take on the form of a trans-European menu or gastro-map of my route.
Mangia Mangia opens on Thursday 23rd July, 6-9pm at Three Colt Gallery, 82 Three Colt St, London E14 8AP. All are welcome to the opening night. The show then runs for 18 days until August 9th.
Learning by getting out more!
One of the challenges of working as an artist in 2026 is the need for self-promotion or, as artist and curator Rosalind Davis once put it, ‘to constantly remind people that you exist’. Writing these newsletters is proving to be a useful experience for clarifying ideas, sharing research and keeping in touch with friends far and wide, old and new. But the constant me-me-me nature of these has often made me cringe , especially when I have read them back.
I’ve been trying to work out a way of getting around this whilst still letting people know what I’ve been up to and I think that one of the solutions is to enjoy and celebrate the work of other artists.
Recently, I curated my first group exhibition as part of the Walthamstow Arts Trail and it turned out to be a life-giving, joyful and enriching experience. Putting a group show together meant that I was forced out of my usual habits of sleep-work-studio-repeat and given the excuse to go and visit other artist’s studios.
I started by heading down to Thamesside Studios in Woolwich to visit Lottie Stoddart, a friend of several years whose studio was a treasure-trove of cardboard creations, paintings, drawings and interesting machines, books and works-in-progress. Selecting works and then taking them away with me made me feel like I’d robbed a bank!
Similarly, I headed over to Limehouse to visit Philip Elbourne’s basement studio which felt like an underground laboratory. An entire wall lined with all manner of experiments in paper pulp, moulded contoured and coloured in strange and beguiling ways.
Next it was over to Leytonstone to visit Eleanor Bedlow’s studio: a short cycle away from where I live. Again, Eleanor showed many of her artworks and her bespoke plinths made from paper pulp. We discussed the exhibition, the logistics and the layout of the show. Here, thanks to our discussion, it was decided that we could mix-and-match the curating of the exhibition itself so that the artworks of others could stand on Eleanor’s plinths (and the idea came to me to use my Barbican tower model as a plinth for the work of others in the show too).
Lastly, I was able to spend a couple of nights in Norwich where a friend lives. I was driven across the Norfolk Broads in the midst of an early summer baking and then over to the coast at Great Yarmouth where my friend Anna Brass has a studio. I visited Anna’s old studio in Norwich a couple of years ago and it made a lasting impact with artworks aplenty stacked as far as the eye could see. This new studio was no different. Again, I was entrusted with three pieces which I took away with me, back to London.
It was a genuine privilege to be welcomed into each and I left them all feeling motivated, excited about art and like a burden had been lifted. It’s so easy to forget that we’re part of a community and I always find that talking about art with other artists relieves the questions and problems of the studio like some form of magic potion. Spending too much time in my own company leads to overthinking and unhealthy introspection which is bad for me and bad for the art.
Likewise, the other artists in the exhibition either posted or hand-delivered work with the arrival of each feeling like a Christmas Day treat.
If you missed the exhibition, I would encourage you to look up the work of Cully, Anusha, Eleanor, Lottie, Anna, Phil, Toby and Ellie. All are exciting artists making great, innovative work. Links to their work is on my Instagram grid, along with installation shots of the exhibition.
And the lesson for me going forward is simple: look for other opportunities to organise exhibitions and take time to visit the studios of others. If you’re an artist reading this, please reach out if you’d be interested in welcoming me into your studio- I’d be delighted to visit! And if you’re not, please come and visit me in my studio: I’d love to show you around.
Throwing myself in at the deep end
In his 1997 song Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen), Baz Lurhmann includes the advice ‘Do one thing everyday that scares you’. Last month was a good exercise in following this with a few people asking me to do things that I found uncomfortable.
Firstly, I was invited back to the residency in Dalston run by friends in Morphē Arts to help run a group crit of two of the artists on the residency programme. I’ve taken part in many crits before but never been entrusted with facilitating one. Despite my nerves, the session went well and I came away feeling enriched by the conversation: I hope the participating artists did also.
More recently, my friend Anna Freeman-Bentley very kindly put my name forwards to Joe Dunning from Sotheby’s who was looking to arrange some studio visits for the students on the professional course that he leads.
So, later that month I had the privilege of welcoming 30+ students into my studio for a 30-minute session and introduction to my work.
For the visit, I employed my usual tactics of bombardment: overwhelming the visitors with things to look at and see. My tactics seemed to work well: I handed out zines, watercolours, books and other paintings on paper and I had covered the walls with a salon hang which itself offered the opportunity to see hitherto unseen connections between the artworks.
More recently still, I was invited to the Sotheby’s Art Institute on Bedford Square for a Q&A session where I talked about ‘The Economics of Being an Artist’. This was a useful opportunity to speak candidly about what life looks like as a visual artist managing budgets, maintaining a studio practice and paying bills.
I’m thankful for these opportunities and grateful to all who invited, recommended and listened to me. It was a privilege to be given this soap box on which to stand and I hope that it provided some useful information and insights.