The Meadow, Billy Crosby’s first major solo show in London

The Meadow signifies a gentle, liminal place of emergence; of rest and threshold, wildness and openness. It implies a context of entangled life, diverse intelligences and larger patterns.

(Billy Crosby)

The eponymous meadow can be understood then, as a literal setting as well as an inner or psychic terrain. Both ancient and modern, The Meadow operates on a suspended plane of speculative contemplation. Here we encounter the fruits of Crosby’s lived experience filtered through a recursive dialogue with generative AIs and LoRA diffusion models, trained on the artist’s previous work.

Motifs of biological mimicry and artificial emergence run throughout the work. Forms suggestive of mycelium, neural net structures and symbolic architectures flicker in and out of legibility…

(Billy Crosby)

The Meadow

By Shane Bradford and Siân Newlove-Drew

A head signifies cognisance, consciousness and first vitality; it’s the first part of the body to enter the world. Within the head is vital parts- the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and the brain. This organ of nervous tissue is suspended in fluid, floating, ensheathed by multiple membranes. The external protective membrane is the dura matter, then in the middle is the transparent arachnoid membrane, named as such for its delicate spider web-like projections of protective tissue, cells and connections. The most interior layer of membrane around the brain is the pia matter, also termed the ‘tender mother’ membrane.

The ‘mother’ is an often-used metaphor for the world. Billy and I live next to a meadow, together, we often cross it. The meadow pushes us out- the opposite orient of home and returns us to it, moving through in different emotional states, imagining, and noticing, walking in glimpsed feeling.

During the summer’s heatwave, it caught fire. The meadows centre turned torrid, jet black and planetary, rolling into unharmed grass, distinctive, and changed against the green. It didn’t take long until plants asserted growth, in a stirring of rejuvenation. The blackened grass, rapidly flecked with new colour and shape. Standing inside it, I felt an exchange between Billy, myself, and the meadows atmosphere. We were spirited witnesses to the fire-the once buoyant embers and smoke, and the diligent roots, invisible underground-the manifest and the unseen felt. The meadow a resilient mother, a constellation, a nervous system of organised receivers, pollinators, processors, and responders.

‘Floaters’ are visual symptoms which appear in one’s vision. Emerging like snowflakes, thread-like objects, dots, rings, petals, insects, and amorphous clouds, or flashes. Floaters occur when strands and specks drift in the eyes vitreous humour and cause shadows. These shadows are perceived as suspended, appearing active and elusive, shifting across the visual field. In ancient Greek and Roman times, they were termed muscae volitantes, translating to “flying flies” and compared to lentils and swooping birds. Throughout history, humans have tried to understand these phantom specks, and have even interpreted them as supernatural and spiritual, and as optical messages from divine realms.

The idea that the eye could emit light was an enduring theory in early history. Empedocles compared the eye to a lantern; and therefore, vision the result of the eyes ‘light’ touching objects and grasping them with its beams. Ancient philosophers understood everything as made of the four elements, fire, air, earth, and water; and that the eye, an incredible flaming beacon, was ignited by Aphrodite. To ancient people, this theory made sense. It was a reasonable explanation for the intense illuminated solar form that persists and reverberates when eyelids are closed, after looking into the sun, or the flashes and flares under skin, when eyelids are pressed with fingertips.

It also explained the occurrence of reflective optical orbs in the heads of wolves and lambs in the dark. We now understand this as ‘tapetum’, a mirror like layer beneath the retina, creating the eye-shine and night vision in animals. I can understand the thinking- and as a child, I liked the red discharging eyes that developed in the flash photos of me at birthday parties, and at Halloween. This red eye effect occurring in humans is caused by light

reflecting the blood in the back of the eye. This effect transformed me into a cat, hero, or mystic. The heads in Billy’s paintings, are perhaps fuzzy lambs with ablaze retinas… or cats or hero’s or mystics, or witnesses; us, interacting with the corporal world. Foregrounded, flashed, and focussed.

The reflective surface of the eyeball has stimulated gem-like descriptions. Comparable to the eye, it was thought that within a gemstone; compounded, absorbed, and intensified, was a light. Eye agate describes the distinctive formations of concentric rings, akin to iris and pupil, found within agate stone. Cats Eye Chrysoberyl, Bulls Eye, Hawks Eye and Tigers Eye are gemstones named after the eyes of animals.

Gemstones are used as talisman, for balance and for healing. They are connected to qualities, archetypes, and spirits. They are selected through connection to particular associations and externalise an innate and personal resonance. On holiday, Billy bought a purple piriform Amethyst. The stone containing stratums of white ocellus markings, and on the side less smooth, a love heart. I bought a carnelian, attracted to its redness and perfect sensual roundedness.

Today, passing through the meadow, I was stopped by a fallen leaf. It was glowing and crimson, and so glossy it was nearly viscous. Out from its midrib flared gold and orange. I photographed it to share with Billy. I typed, ‘fire leaf’ and pressed send.

BILLY CROSBY, b. 1992 Lives and works in London, UK

EDUCATION

2024 MA Painting, Royal College of Art, London
2016 BA (Hons) Painting, Camberwell College of Arts, London

SELECTED SOLO AND DUO EXHIBITIONS

2025 Every Day I Bear Witness to the Birth of a Thousand Suns, Lucas Gallery, London, UK 2024 Dreamers, Well Projects, NADA Miami (with Siân Newlove-Drew), US
2023 This Package Contains the Universe, Calcio, London (with Siân Newlove-Drew), UK 2022 TG Paintings, Ron Providence, Rhode Island, US

In Search of Our Most Precious Resource…, Well Projects, Margate (with Siân Newlove-Drew), UK 2020 Phlegm Festival, Honeymoon 226, London, UK

2019 Superorganism, Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London, UK 

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025 Mechanical Animal, Blackbird Rook, Artsy Online (curated by Shane Bradford) 2024 Greta Thunder, Special Animal, London, UK (co-curated with Siân Newlove-Drew

The Fruit is Not There to be Eaten, Art Busan, KR (curated by Sunjoo Jung)
Caper, 10 Greatorex Street, London, UK (curated by Toby Rainbird)
Linked Out: Logged In, Gossamer Fog / Enclave Projects, London, UK (curated by Nina Wong) Palimpsestic Impressions, Arusha Gallery, London, UK (curated by Danny Leyland)

2023 Contingency Part 1 / Cozzie Livs Part II, Des Bains, London, UK (co-curated by Tom Bull)
Baggage Claim, Staffordshire St, London, UK (curated by Georgia Stephenson and Rosalind Wilson)

2022 High Windows, Recent Activity, Birmingham, UK (curated by Ted Targett)
2019 All or Nothing, Lungley Gallery, London, UK
2018 Fatal Attraction, Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London , UK (curated by Chris Thompson)

Paper Cuts, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (curated by Kristian Day)

Salt Castles, Lewisham Arthouse, London, UK
2017 Changelings, The Flying Dutchman, London, UK (curated by Chris Thompson) 2016 Sticking the Moon with Double Sided Tape, Fotopub, SI(curated by Marta Barina)

PRIZES & RESIDENCIES

2018 The John Moores Painting Prize, Liverpool, UK
2017 The Vanguard Court Award, Artist Residency, London, UK
2016 The Marmite Prize, Block 336, London and Highlanes Gallery, IRL

PUBLICATIONS

2023 Seeking Channels Anthology, Well Projects, Margate