Author Archive

Tuesday, June 5th, 2018

Knight Webb Gallery’s opening exhibition at our new space in Battersea is a revival of In a Silent Way with artists Anders Knutsson and Lesley Hilling. The combination of organic wooden structures and gentle monochrome painting demonstrates a natural connection between artistic styles, both visibly and conceptually.

Knutsson’s paintings are a synthesis of Nordic and American culture, combining Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, and Northern Romanticism. Equilibrium and understatement are the foundation of everything Knutsson creates.

Hilling’s wall sculptures instantly recognisable for their organic, architectural forms and understated elegance. In her practice there is a system of scouring the streets for materials, and sometimes destroying them before their transformation into sculpture. Lesley values nostalgia. Her house and her sculpture practice are testament to a strong attachment to the past. The recycling of materials has grown out of her core values.

Beyond The Blue Horizon 2017, 70 cm x 75 cm x 19 cm, Antique wood and piano parts

Anders Knutsson

Red Hot 2015, 148 cm x 105 cm, Wax Oil on Linen

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Market Art Fair

Tuesday, April 24th, 2018

Knutsson’s paintings were increasingly popular with young Swedish collectors at Market Art Fair 2018.

Knight Webb Gallery presented 50 years of Monochrome painting by Anders Knutsson, selling most large works on the booth. Knutsson’s collector base seems to be shifting, with five out of seven painting sold to young families.

We hope to return next year.

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Art Miami – ‘Hot Tub’ – A solo presentation of Berlin artist Juliane Hundertmark

Friday, October 20th, 2017

I arrived at Art Miami with my son Louis a few days before the fair. We needed to set up a complex installation which included a fully functioning hot tub. We had arranged a hot tub sponsor, but had heard nothing from them for over a week. Two days before the fair we drove to the hot tub retailer’s address and there was nothing there, just a concrete floor and some leaves!

Louis got on the phone and managed to persuade a local company called Miami Pool, Spa, and Billiard, into lending us a tub for the duration of fair. It wasn’t quite the romantic wooden kind I was hoping for; more high tech with lights and music, but it was free of charge and designed to hold hot water.

The tub arrived at th last minute and were filling it up with water well into the opening hours of the preview. A hot tub is highly interactive. The artist placed strange puppet sculptures around the edge of the tub as guardians. She sewed together beach balls in a lacy vintage style, and threw them into the water.

Juliane had painted a series of swimming pool paintings, and we had pre sold two of them, which gave us sufficient confidence in the project as a whole. I guess Art Miami liked the tub, they still use it on their website.

Context Art Miami took place November 29th – December 4th 2016

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Art of the Machine Age (Modern British Abstraction 1956 – 2017)

Thursday, September 28th, 2017

The taste for Modern British Art has grown considerably over the past decade. There are certain forms and characteristics which place this genre firmly in the British landscape, however artists of the late 1940’s and 1950’s bridge a cultural division between two distinct periods of art history.

In the pre war era compositions remain predominantly classical, referring to the figure, the landscape, and other Victorian themes; even Picasso with his experimental lust chose subjects which were more or less classical.

The post war era brings a noticeable change. Artists seem to awaken from a pastoral sleep, into the fuel consuming world of the machine age, the monstrous hardware of WW2 wiping Victorian sentiment from their memories. Abstract Expressionism appears to be an authentic response to the realities of a new, noisier, and perhaps more unkind world.

Knight Webb Gallery presents Art of the Machine Age as an extension of our contemporary art program. Early paintings by Alan Davie, Adrian Heath, and William Gear hang alongside recent abstract works by contemporary artists, whose visions resonate with the melancholic optimism of post war Britain.

This is Knight Webb Gallery’s first exhibition of period artworks; however, we have been building modern collections behind the scenes for many years. Our relationships with collectors around the world allow us to locate outstanding artworks, which have not yet circulated through the secondary market and auction houses.

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Cosmoscow

Thursday, September 7th, 2017

Cosmoscow Art Fair in Russia (8th – 10th September), exhibiting works by Juliane Hundertmark, Nadav Drukker, Drukker & Webb, and Alison Jackson.

Cosmoscow catalogue

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Gavin Turk ‘Metaphysical Rasta Loaf’

Friday, July 14th, 2017

Gavin Turk’s sculpture “Metaphysical Rasta Loaf” is currently on sale at Knight Webb Gallery, alongside copies of the Reggae album ‘Use Your Loaf’, signed and illustrated by Turk.

The sculpture was conceived by Turk to reflect the ordinary nature of bread and to demonstrate how the shape of ‘Mothers Pride’ embodies historical, cultural and social meaning.

To add a layer of mystery, Turk painted the cast bread in the style of a mysterious box which appears in the foreground of De Chirico’s painting “The Disquieting Muse”. The colours on the box in the painting are reminiscent of the Jamaican Flag, and if we add all these elements together we can see why Turk called it “Metaphysical Rasta Loaf”.

A unique Turk sculpture for under 10k, plinth included.

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Drukker & Webb Collaborations

Thursday, May 4th, 2017

Following the successful ‘Quantum Ceramics‘ exhibition at Knight Webb Gallery, a new collaborative project has been formed. This project is between abstract painter Rufus Knight-Webb and ceramicist and theoretical physicist Nadav Drukker.

Drukker and Webb both draw from extensive knowledge in their fields, combining their unlikely subject matter; Theoretical Physics and Abstract Painting. Initially each work appears to represent a blackboard, however as the eyes focus on the picture plane the illusion deepens, an artwork of abstract improvisation appears.

The inscribed and written formulae are ‘String Theory & Supersymmetric Field Theories’, which are Drukker’s specialised areas of research. The theory is written onto a black and white canvas as though for an advanced mathematics lesson. Because the physics is purely theoretical and difficult to communicate to a non scientific public, the artist and scientist collaboration helps illustrate the beauty in the physics without a need to understand any of it.

Nadav Drukker & Rufus Knight-Webb ‘Quantum Painting No.1’ 2017, Mixed media on canvas, 120 x 170 cm

Nadav Drukker & Rufus Knight-Webb ‘Quantum Painting No.2’ 2017, Mixed media on canvas, 90 x 140 cm

Nadav Drukker & Rufus Knight-Webb ‘Quantum Painting No.3’ 2017, Mixed media on canvas, 90 x 140 cm

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Lesley Hilling – On Longing

Thursday, April 27th, 2017

‘There is an unseen hand in my work and I am simply its caretaker. I work with the hues of the wood as if I’m a painter.’ – Lesley Hilling

Knight Webb Gallery will present a solo exhibition of several new sculptures by Brixton’s best known resident artist, Lesley Hilling. The exhibition will feature floor standing and wall sculptures made in found antique materials.

Both challenging and innovative, Lesley’s work is instantly recognizable for its organic, architectural forms and its understated elegance. Her background as a graphic designer has influenced these carefully considered compositions. All the works are made from salvaged antique furniture and found objects, many of which relate personally to the artist.

Hidden between the multi-faceted layers of each piece are old pianos, watches and family heirlooms. Her intricate works can take up to a year to assemble and complete.

‘The things I make can be separated into two types – the formal constructions made from different salvaged woods, and the more poetic pieces that will additionally feature found objects – things from my collections – cigarette cards, shells, coins, dolls, clock mechanisms, old photos, precariously placed magnifying glasses… I feel these pieces tell a story and the key to the story is with the viewer.’ -Lesley Hilling

Founded on a sense of nostalgia where the emphasis is on the collective and personal memory. Many of her constructions encourage the opening of doors and the pulling out of drawers. There is interplay between what is hidden, revealed and what is yet to be discovered. A walk on the beach or a country lane will produce all number of finds, such as crab bodies, drift wood, sculls, a dried frog; which can all be seamlessly integrated into the artwork.

‘Lesley’s work conveys a powerful sense of longing to preserve the fragments of the past, a desire for order, a passionate and mysterious evocation of lost moments.’ – Jane England, Director of England & Co Gallery

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VOLTA 13

Tuesday, April 18th, 2017

This year at VOLTA 13 Basel we will be showing at Booth D06, with artists Juliane Hundertmark, Nadav Drukker, and Simon Gaiger.

Nadav Drukker is a lecturer in Theoretical Physics based at Kings College London. He has held research positions at a number of universities in the USA and the UK. Drukker developed his skills in ceramics as a means for communicating his research into string theory to non-scientific audience. The artist’s ceramics explore the languages of science, mathematics, and visual art. Drukker grew up in Jerusalem, completed his PHD in Theoretical Physics at Princeton, and now lives in London.

Juliane Hundertmark is considered one of Berlin’s most original and inventive emerging painters. Her work communicates everyday truths as she experiences them.The artist’s distinctive style involves visual metaphors and the staging of scenarios to examine these social observations. Whilst yielding many interpretations, Hundertmark’s work is primarily concerned with psychoanalysis. Her narratives are characterised by an otherworldly combination of eeriness, humour, and dreamlike spectacle.

Simon Gaiger’s sculptures are both human and landscape, narrative and abstract. They are influenced by the environment of his home in rural Wales, his childhood in Africa, and his time spent working as a shipwright’s assistant. Gaiger is known for creating solid wood sculptural furniture, often chiselled and organically shaped. His wood sculptures are elegant, and follow organic lines reminiscent of the fields and valleys of the artist’s home. Within his metal sculptures there is a gentle tension of opposing forces; elements strain and pull against each other or balance precipitously.

Juliane Hundertmark

The Visit 2017, 80 cm x 60 cm, Mixed media on paper

VOLTA 13

, cm x cm,

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Breakfast With Artists: Nadav Drukker

Tuesday, April 4th, 2017

BREAKFAST WITH ARTISTS

Launching Saturday 8th April 2017
10.30 am – 12:00 pm

Breakfast with Artists is a new bi monthly event at Knight Webb Gallery Brixton, where artists, art lovers, and local residents are invited to the gallery to enjoy a light breakfast followed by a discussion between a gallery artist and Knight Webb Gallery’s director, Rufus Knight-Webb. The discussion will explore the artist’s current work and practice and will be followed by an audience Q&A.

Knight Webb Gallery will be launching their first Breakfast with Artists event with Brixton resident, Theoretical Physicist and studio Potter, Doctor Nadav Drukker. Drukker will be discussing his ceramics and exhibition ‘Quantum Ceramics’. This will also be the last opportunity to view the exhibition on it’s final day at the gallery.

The first talk in the series will be taking place on Saturday 8th April 2017, from 10.30 am – 12:00 pm. Knight Webb Gallery will be providing coffee & croissants, followed by a discussion between gallery director Rufus Knight-Webb, and Nadav Drukker.

Breakfast with Artists: Nadav Drukker
Saturday 8th April, 10.30 am – 12:00 pm

10.30 am: Light breakfast at Knight Webb Gallery
11:00 am: Nadav Drukker in conversation with Rufus Knight-Webb
11.30 am – 12:00 pm: Audience Q&A

(Update) IMAGES FROM THE EVENT: