NOCTURNES at Lyndsey Ingram, January 23 - 21 March

Nocturnes brings together a group of artists who examine the experience, character and subject matter of night time. The show encompasses painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. Ideas of sleep, nocturnal activity and the moon are investigated alongside dream-like imagery and the strange, surrealism of nightmares. Artists use night scenes to convey a sense of strangeness, detachment, loneliness and emotional trauma, as well as peace, meditation and undisturbed beauty.

Night time for artists is often a period of intense activity; Miles Aldridge, Louise Bourgeois and Philip Guston, for example, have used this period where the world is asleep to make memorable and lasting images. It also provided artists such as Walter Sickert, Vija Celmins and David Hockney opportunities to experiment with complex printing techniques; using new processes to convey disffused light.

And One Day The Apple Fell - Still Life Painting and it's Transportive Possibilities

FEATURING THR WORK OF: ANDREAS RÜTHI, JACQUI HALLUM, NINA ROYLE, LEE MAELZER, MAHALI O’HARE, PHILIP NICOL, DAN HOWARD-BIRT, LEE JOHNSON, CASPER WHITE, ANDREW CHURCHILL, JAMIE ATHERTON

Still life painting is a centuries-old convention where a painter gathers small objects on a tabletop, stands in front of this arrangement, and attempts to make equivalents - in paint - of what they see. There are two separate things going on here. Firstly, the choice of objects might say something about the times the painter lives in and the communities they engage with, or the arrangement might say something about home-life or studio-life. Secondly, and of equal importance, is the presence of the painter. The time it takes to stand over the tabletop motif with brush in hand is a special time. In the concentration of looking, mixing colour and applying paint, time moves differently, our minds wander and the objects being painted take on strange personalities, charged characteristics or they remind us of painting precedents that all painters mentally carry around with them. The painter is both present (bearing witness) and transported (dreaming through painting)

Just as making still life painting seems to embrace the divergent processes of recording and dreaming, so too looking at still life painting opens-up a feeling that the image is both a collection of ordinary objects and the seed of metaphoric potentialities. From the vanitas contemplation of death among living things or the demonstration of culture or wealth through blooms and trinkets, to the conjuring of landscape spaces within the folds of a cloth or the processing of influences, still life paintings have endless possibilities for becoming bigger and more complex than they at first seem.

The exhibition title borrows equally from T J Clark’s recent appraisal of Cezanne whereby all things are woven into a precarious and delicately held continuum (himself citing Ernst Bloch: “no longer fruit, nor fruit made over into paint; instead all imaginable life is in them, and if they were to fall, a universal conflagration would ensue.”), and from the lyrical rhythm of Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up in Blue. ‘I had a job in the great north woods / Working as a cook for a spell / But I never did like it all that much / And one day the axe just fell’. Dylan’s axe is both a woodcutter’s tool and the action of quitting or losing a job. So too, the apples, cups, flowers and pots in this show cannot help but be more than they appear.

M.A.H Gallery presents ‘Tailored Perspectives’ at Drake’s Savile Row

M.A.H Gallery hosts an exhibition at menswear store Drake’s on Savile Row to celebrate the 2023 editions of London Design Week and London Fashion Week.



M.A.H Gallery continues to seek out unique interior settings to showcase the works of their roster of artists, this time partnering with esteemed menswear store Drake’s on Savile Row.  This exhibition, titled ‘Tailored Perspectives’, showcases the work of seven fine artists exploring themes of fashion and identity. Expect to see moody figurative works, characterful portraits, whimsical fashion illustrations, immersively coloured abstracts, and works animated with playful figures. Artworks will be exhibited throughout the store, intermingled with the varied displays of casualwear and tailoring, including works displayed within the generous dressing rooms. There is a shared sensibility between M.A.H Gallery and Drake’s, with roots in East London, both are conduits for creative culture, celebrating the creative individual, as much as the final work or garment itself.



Exhibition Statement:

An aspiration, a thing of beauty, a cliché, a statement, the garments we collect, that we admire, that we covet, much like the work of an artist, connect us to one another, to culture, to a time, to a place. For London Design Week and London Fashion Week M.A.H Gallery presents ‘Tailored Perspectives’ at Drake’s Savile Row. A group show of fine artists whose work depicts palettes, patterns, and figures where fashion is central to the theme.



Artists exhibiting include:

  • Theo Bardsley

  • Lee Johnson

  • Studio SPF

  • Ed Burkes

  • Alec Doherty

  • Frida Wannerberger

  • Joe Warrior Walker



Exhibition Details:

Location: Drake's, 9 Savile Row, Mayfair, London W1S 3PF 

Opening Date:  Saturday September 16th, 2023

Opening Hours: Monday - Saturday: 10am - 6pm & Sunday: 12pm - 6pm

Last Date Open: Thursday October 26th, 2023

Photography: @christaholkastudio

Gallery: @mahgallery_london

@drakesdiary

Contemporary British Painting Prize 2023 – Huddersfield and London

CBP Prize 2023 Exhibitions – Huddersfield and London

16 SEPTEMBER 2023

I am very pleased to announce my selection for the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2023. The first exhibition will open at Huddersfield Art Gallery on 16th September, and will then travel to Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London, opening on the 1st December.

The 16 finalists are: Karolina Albricht, Robbie Bushe, Benjamin Deakin, Marcus Jefferies, Rich Jellyman, Lee Johnson, Allyson Keehan, Lee Maelzer, Melanie Miller, David Orme, Rosey Prince, Ellen Ranson, Claude Temin-Vergez, Emma Tod, Twinkle Troughton, Suzy Willey

The winner will be announced at a private view at Huddersfield Art Gallery on Saturday 23 September, and will be selected by our three judges: Beth Hughes (independent Curator and Researcher), Caroline Walker (artist) and Grant Scanlan (Curator at Huddersfield Art Gallery).

The finalists were selected from over 1000 artists by a panel of four members of CBP, this year, Lesley Bunch (the winner of the 2022 prize), Gordon Dalton, Susan Gunn and Mandy Payne.

A Generous Space, Hastings Contemporary, Nov 25 2021 - 17 Apr 2022

A Generous Space at Hastings Contemporary is a real-world immersion into the Artist Support Pledge community.  

More than 300 works from all over the world feature in this groundbreaking, crowd-pleasing exhibition.

The selection of work on display was made by Artist Support Pledge along with:

Kate Bryan – Head of Collections for Soho House

Jes Fernie – Curator and writer

Julie Lomax – CEO of a-n The Artists Information Company

Lakwena Maciver – Artist and 2020/2021 Hastings Contemporary exhibitor

Natalie Melton – Creative Director at Crafts Council 

Javier Pes – Art writer and editor

Sally Shaw – Director of FirstSite, Colchester

Jo Baring – Director of the Ingram Collection of Modern British & Contemporary Art

https://www.hastingscontemporary.org/exhibition/artist-support-pledge/

Every Day, Terrace Gallery, 1 Oct - 15 Oct 2020

Avebury Stone (2020), will be featured in the exhibition Every Day, curated by Benjamin Walker, at Terrace Gallery, London.

Undertaking a journey through spectral territories in search of the haunted and the uncanny in present day/past British Isles, ‘Every day’ connects hidden pathways, from explorations of the eerie landscape to hidden histories, an otherly pastoralism via… hazily misremembered televisual transmissions and tales, faded modernity, suburbia, dreams of lost futures.

Exhibiting artists:

Sue Arrowsmith / Mark Beldan / Matilda Bevan / Hannah Brown / Julie Caves / Robin Dixon / Sam Douglas / David Edmond / Steph Goodger / Mary Herbert / Mandy Hudson / Lisa Ivory / Lee Johnson / Max Mason / Baccara Price / Sarah Sparkes / Rhys Trussler / Covadonga Valdes / Ben Walker / Georg Wilson

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Avebury Stone 2020

oil on panel

30.5 x 23.8 cm (12 x 9 inches)

The Road to Utopia, 15 sept - 15 Oct 2020

I have several works in an online exhibition hosted by Aleph Contemporary and curated by New York-based curator and art historian Rosa JH Berland.

Exhibiting artists:

Lee Johnson / Alex McAdoo / Jaime Valtierra

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Midnight at the Sculptor’s Studio 2020

oil, oil pastel on canvas

115 x 135 cm (45 x 53 inches)

The Just, 4 Aug - 14 Sept 2020

My painting Fashion Sweater (2019), is featured in The Just, a group show curated by Dan Coombs and hosted by Aleph Contemporary.

The artists in this virtual exhibition all make paintings that explore the ethical and moral dilemmas of human beings, their boundaries and territories , their conflicts and struggles.

Exhibiting artists:

Michael AJERMAN / Pat ANDREA / Christy BURDOCK / Dan COOMBS / Jacopo DAL BELLO / Archie FRANKS / Holly FROY / Fiona G ROBERTS / Joana GALEGO / Alastair GORDON / Peter GRIFFIN / Lee JOHNSON / Zebedee JONES / Phil KING / Alice MACDONALD / Kathryn MAPLE / Paul NEWMAN / Miroslav POMICHAL / Cristina RUIZ GUIÑAZÚ / Sophie VALLANCE CANTOR / Jaime VALTIERRA / Grant WATSON / Ben WESTLEY CLARKE / Tess WILLIAMS

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Fashion Sweater 2019

oil, oil pastel on canvas

137.2 x 96.5 cm (54 x 38 inches)

Yoga Among the Houseplants, 16 - 25 April 2020

I have three paintings in Yoga Among the Houseplants, an online exhibition with Aleph Contemporary. Works exhibited are Yoga Among the Houseplants (2018), Garage Sale (2018) and Yoga in the Park After Sundown (2019).

The exhibition can be viewed here.

Exhibiting artists:

Gordon Dalton / Nelson Diplexcito / Holly Froy / Joana Galego / Alex Gough / Lee Johnson / Joe Packer / Howard Rogers / Mark Wright.

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Yoga Among the Houseplants 2018

oil, oil pastel, charcoal on canvas

135 x 125 cm (53 x 49 inches)

Pick 'n' Mix, Christie's Education, 6 May - 7 June 2019

I have three paintings in a three-person exhibition at Christies Education, 42 Portland Place, Marylebone, London, W1B 1NB

Exhibiting Artists:

Scarlett Bowman / Lee Johnson / Wendy Saunders

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Celebrating New Jackets with Bunting 2019

oil, oil pastel, spray enamel, charcoal on canvas

137.1 x 111.7 cm (54 x 44 inches)