Gesture and Being

About

Gesture and Being brings together new work from six recent graduates of Royal College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art: Anna Curzon Price, Gala Hills, Katja Farin, Mia Wilkinson, Poppy Critchlow and Qian Zhong. All working within the realms of figurative painting, these artists use their practice to challenge inherited narratives and expectations ascribed to gender, the body and the self. Together, they champion a self-expression that is free and fluid, presenting figures that are unstable, performative, dreamlike, or defiantly unruly. 

These artists reflect on how our personal narratives are often in flux with our internal dialogues, external interactions and our environment. Exploring interior worlds – psychological, emotional or symbolic – as much as physical ones, they consider how we are seen, staged and felt within both private and public realms. Domestic interiors, mythical spaces, imagined utopias and everyday moments become sites where tension and connection coexist, and where the body becomes an active, renewed force.  

Despite the playful and vivid use of colour, undertones are often unsettling. These paintings are layered with complex feeling, exploring themes of anxiety, vulnerability and discomfort. The environments presented here are both tender and confrontational, humorous and uneasy, where representation is not fixed but continually negotiated, and where the figure emerges as something porous, potent, and profoundly alive. 

Participating artists: Anna Curzon Price, Gala Hills, Katja Farin, Mia Wilkinson, Poppy Critchlow, Qian Zhong