HackelBury presents Ian McKeever: Seven Stones, an exhibition of photographs taken at the Neolithic Henge Monument in Avebury, Wiltshire.
Made in 2017 using a medium-format analogue camera and printed in 2025, these works reflect McKeever’s fascination with the physical presence of the stones; their mass and heft and the sense of time and permanence which they embody.
Seven Stones forms part of McKeever’s philosophical exploration and long-standing dialogue and symbiotic relationship between painting and photography, presence and absence, time and materiality.
“It’s the gap between an image and its presence that intrigues me”. IM
Rather than depicting the Avebury stone circle as landscape or monument, McKeever focuses on the presence of the stones: their physical mass, indomitable endurance, and radically non-human sense of time. The photographs do not attempt to encompass the site as a whole. Instead, McKeever moves close to the stones, cropping tightly, circling them and allowing their weight and density to assert themselves within the frame.
The photographs Seven Stones emerge directly from McKeever’s painting practice. Known primarily for his abstract paintings, McKeever frequently turns to photography not as a preparatory tool, but as a “reality check”: a way of affirming the world of sensation that his paintings pursue in more elusive, amorphous forms. While his paintings allow presence to remain latent and indeterminate, photography pins it down to a recognisable object. However, also recognising that a photograph as such is itself an abstraction, as is the painting. This gap between an object and an implied presence McKeever explored in his monumental painting series Henge Paintings 2017 – 2022.
“It is through the photograph that I have come to know myself and through the painting I have come to be myself”. IM
The tension between the fixity and certainty of the photographic image and the open-ended temporality of painting is central to McKeever’s work. A photograph holds a single, emphatically fixed moment in time, while a painting evolves across months or years, resisting completion and refusing to belong to either a single point in time or a single viewpoint.
Ian McKeever: Seven Stones invites viewers into a quiet but profound encounter with the stones as presences rather than images, asking how we register the world physically and sensorially and how art mediates between what is seen, what is felt, and what endures across time.
About Ian McKeever
Ian McKeever (British, b. 1946) emerged as an artist in the early 1970’s out of an interest in both conceptualism and abstract painting, the prevalent trends at the time. Although seeing himself primarily as a painter, this is informed by his ongoing engagement with photography. Not in the blurring of the boundary between the two disciplines, rather in seeing and understanding them as distinct visual languages.
McKeever received the DAAD scholarship in 1989 and was the subject of a major retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, in 1990. He has exhibited internationally and has taught extensively in the UK, Germany, and the USA including Guest Professor at the Städel Akademie der Kunst in Frankfurt, Senior Lecturer, Slade, University of London and Visiting Professor at the University of Brighton.
Ian McKeever was elected a Royal Academician in 2003 and his work is represented in leading international public Collections, including Tate, British Museum, Royal Academy of Arts, London; Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; Museum of Fine Art, Budapest; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk; Glyptotek, Copenhagen; Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Boston Museum of Fine Art and Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut.
About HackelBury Fine Art
HackelBury was founded twenty-seven years ago by Marcus Bury and Sascha Hackel. The gallery is committed to championing artists working with the visual arts who push the boundaries of their medium to create meaningful and contemplative work.
The London based gallery initially showcased classic photography from the 20th century including Henri Cartier- Bresson, Berenice Abbott, Malick Sidibe, and Sebastião Salgado. The transition from traditional photography to more conceptual work was as intuitive as it was organic, beginning with artists such as William Klein, Pascal Kern, Doug and Mike Starn, Garry Fabian Miller, Katja Liebmann, Ian McKeever, Stephen Inggs and Bill Armstrong.
In recent years the gallery has taken on emerging artists such as Oli Kellett, Nadezda Nikolova, Alys Tomlinson, Coral Woodbury and Sharon Walters.
Each artist, whether emerging or established, creates work defined by a depth of thought and breadth and consistency of approach. The small group of artists with whom HackelBury work, represent a diversity of practice yet share an artistic integrity which the gallery is fully committed to supporting in the long term.
NOTES TO EDITORS
In May this year the Royal Academy will publish a book of the selected writings on art by Ian McKeever covering the period 1978 – 2025. The publication will have entries ranging from his travel journals to such places as Papua New Guinea and Greenland alongside essays on such artists as Piero della Francesca, Richard Diebenkorn and Joan Mitchell. This will be illustrated with a selection of sketchbook pages and photographs drawn from the artist’s travels and studio.
FOR ALL PRESS ENQUIRIES PLEASE CONTACT
Camilla Cañellas – Culturebeam | Cultural Communications
E: camilla@culturebeam.com
M:+34 660375123
Phil Crook – HackelBury Fine Art E: phil@hackelbury.co.uk
Publishing in Art Style Magazine is free of charge for anyone. There are no article processing charges or other publication fees. Art Style Magazine is independent and supports the Open Access Movement. The editors of Art Style Magazine cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in essays and articles published on the Art Style Magazine’s website and editions. Authors agree to the terms and conditions and assure that their submissions are free of third parties’ rights. The views and opinions expressed in the essays and articles are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Art Style Magazine. The authors of Art Style Magazine’s essays and articles are responsible for its content. The Art Style Magazine‘s website provides links to third-party websites. However, the magazine is not responsible for the contents of those linked sites, nor for any link contained in the linked site content of external Internet sites (see Terms & Conditions).
Art Style Magazine, an online, peer–reviewed publication dedicated to art and culture, invites submissions of extended essays and scholarly articles.
The theme of the upcoming edition is:
Performative Arts: Human and Non-Human Co-Creation, Cultural Diversity, Artificial Intelligence, and Future Visions
During the last decades, the field of performative arts has been reshaped by a convergence of philosophical debates, aesthetic experiments, and rapid technological developments. At the same time, enduring historical trajectories—such as the evolution of the classical theatre concept, the rise of intercultural exchange from the 1920s onward, the radical sociopolitical transformations since 1968, and the institutional bifurcation into state-supported and independent theatres—continue to inform contemporary practice. This special issue seeks to foreground these intertwined dimensions while also addressing the emergent role of artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and related media as co‑creative agents.
The volume aims to assemble scholarly articles and extended essays that:
Re-situate the classical theatre paradigm (dramaturgy, direction, acting, scenography) within current co-creative practices.
Trace intercultural dynamics in performance from the avant-garde encounters of the 1920s through post-colonial and decolonial interventions.
Analyze the impact of the 1968 revolts on notions of authorship, audience participation, and the politics of the stage.
Examine the structural split between state-funded and independent theatres, focusing on funding models, artistic working strategies, and, possibly, the integration of digital technologies.
Critically engage with AI-driven creation, treating algorithmic systems not merely as tools but as potential collaborators within historically informed frameworks.
Project speculative futures for performative arts that synthesize the above strands into coherent theoretical and practical visions.
We encourage submissions that address (but are not limited to) the following topics:
Classical Theatre Foundations – continuity and rupture in dramaturgical structures, staging conventions, and performer-director relationships.
Intercultural Performance Since the 1920s – early cross-cultural exchanges, migration of theatrical forms, and contemporary transnational collaborations.
The 1968 Epoch – anti-institutional movements, participatory aesthetics, and their lasting influence on experimental theatre.
State vs. Independent Theatre – comparative analyses of governance, audience development, and artistic autonomy.
Human–Non‑Human Co‑Creation – collaborative processes involving performers, audiences, AI agents, robots, algorithms, and responsive environments.
AI, AR/VR, and Live Creative Arts – case studies of theatre, dance, music, performance art, and installation employing generative systems, sensor-based interaction, motion capture, and immersive media.
Design of Performative Spaces – adaptive, immersive, and interactive architectures shaped by intelligent systems and participatory audiences.
Ethical, Political, and Ecological Implications – responsibility, sustainability, and post-humanist perspectives on technologically mediated performance.
Speculative Futures – envisioning new dramaturgical scores, performance scores for human-machine ensembles, and educational trajectories.
For detailed submission instructions and formatting requirements, please consult Art Style Magazine’s official guidelines on our website (https://artstyle-editions.org/author-guidelines/). Submission deadline: November 30, 2026. We will get back to you with acceptance or non-acceptance feedback after the reviewers have evaluated your contribution. If your submission is accepted, we will inform you about the publication schedule.
The Art Style Magazine is guided by editor-in-chief Dr. Christiane Wagner, with support from an international editorial board and scientific committee.
Jörg U. Lensing, co-editor for this special edition.
Featured image on the webpage post: “The Triadic Ballet” by Oskar Schlemmer. Dancers: Danilo Cardoso and Phaedra Pisimisi. Photo by Kai Pohler. THEATER DER KLÄNGE’s Production, Düsseldorf, 2017.
by Natasha Marzliak, Curator, Art Critic, Professor of Art History and Aesthetics, and Associate Editor of Art Style Magazine
Exhibition review: Alles Farbe, bleibtreudrei Raum für Kunst, Bleibtreustraße 3, Charlottenburg, Berlin. March 13 – April 13, 2026. Part of Charlottenwalk 2026.
I walked into bleibtreudrei Raum für Kunst and the paint arrived before I did. The weight before the form, the carnality of the surface before any possible reading. The works of Gerard Waskievitz reach the body before they reach thought.
Gerard Waskievitz was born in Poland in 1962, studied at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste in Essen, and lives and works in Berlin. He paints in oil and egg tempera, and uses pentimento as method: layers accumulate, earlier sketches bleed through the final surface, and what the paint conceals remains visible beneath, pressing from within.
In times dominated by artificial intelligence and images that are consumed before they are seen, Waskievitz moves in the opposite direction, and it is precisely in this tension that the strength of his work lies. To choose painting today, to choose the body, the gesture, the slow accumulation of pigment on canvas, is a position. This insistence on what has weight, on what demands presence, in an era when the image has become surface without reverse, circulation without friction, contact without contact.
Gerard Waskievitz ́s paintings, Berlin, 2026
The large-scale works settle into the space with an immediate physical presence. The figures are close to life-size, and what happens between them and whoever sees them resists any analysis prepared in advance. What you find is not entirely legible. Faces remain unresolved, figures inhabit situations the painting deliberately leaves unnamed, backgrounds oscillate between exterior landscape and interior state without settling into either. Waskievitz devoured the post-World War I painters, and what pulses in the canvases are the fragmented figures and group compositions where bodies share a space that does not make them proximate, each sealed in a solitude that physical nearness cannot dissolve. The pressure lives in the paint itself, in the density of pigment, in the drips that record the time of the gesture, and also in the distortion of forms, which strains like something yielding under a weight that does not announce itself.
Gerard Waskievitz ́s paintings, Berlin, 2026.
Those who know the history of painting will recognize that Waskievitz devoured much more than a generation. What pulses in the canvases is made of layers that span centuries. The light that emerges from dark matter rather than falling upon it, the pigment that exists as weight before it exists as color, the figures that inhabit shadow as much as visibility, this is the seventeenth century working from inside, Rembrandt and Velázquez digested, their erosions and disappearances still active beneath the surface. Then the nineteenth century: figures that escape the scene containing them, present and ungraspable, looking out from inside a space the narrative cannot close over them, bodies in landscapes that offer no consolation, no geometry of refuge. Manet and Cézanne, swallowed whole. And over all of it, the weight of a century of wars, the solitude of figures that share space without touching, an atmosphere that does not announce its origins but presses from within.
Of all the works in Alles Farbe, it was Tiger in der Landschaft (2025) that did not let me leave. A figure stands at the center, wearing a leopard-print coat, sneakers, fully of now, surrounded by a garden that belongs to no time at all. Mythical creatures dissolve into vegetation, trees bleed into sky, flowers press forward with a carnality that the figure absorbs without reacting. And the face, as in all of Waskievitz’s work, is not there. Not erased. Simply never arrived. This figure exists through its clothes, its stance, the impossible world that has grown around it. It was this painting that made the studio visit necessary.
Gerard Waskievitz , Tiger in der Landschaft, 2025.
In the studio, the smaller landscapes stay on the walls around the large canvases, as if the painting could not fit inside the formats, as if the gesture continued past the edge, infecting the space, making the entire studio a surface in process. The more contained portraits, precise and luminous, reveal the full range of Waskievitz’s command: every incompletion in the large canvases is a decision sustained by a hand that knows what it is opening. What moves that hand separates the image from its explanation, opens gaps and interruptions. Color acts as its own language, modulating intensity and meaning without recourse to description. The ochre-yellow that runs through distinct series is an emotional frequency, the color of light in Flemish interiors, of desacralized medieval gold, of southern sun filtered through northern memory. Blue appears always in tension with that yellow, as antagonist: the other time, the shadow, what endures beneath the warmth. Paint and surface carry the weight of a long history without bowing to it, and it is in that refusal of reverence that each work finds its carnality.
Gerard Waskievitz ́s studio, Berlin.
The real in these works is never fully actualized, and it is in the faces that this becomes unbearable. The face is where we expect the subject, where identity fixes itself, where the other calls us. In Waskievitz the face is there but does not surrender. It is not erasure, not absence. It is a presence that refuses fixation, a figure that exists as force before it exists as person. The female figures carry this condition with particular intensity: present and ungraspable, they look out from inside a space the painting’s narrative cannot close over them, inhabiting the canvas as a site of refusal rather than representation. What pulses in these faceless faces is exactly what Deleuze would call the virtual, not what is missing, but what exceeds what is visible, what the paint holds at the surface without letting actualize. The thickness of the pigment, the form that interrupts itself before completing, the eyes that do not look back because they have not yet fully arrived, all of it sustains the painting open, in process even after it is finished, carrying a humanity that does not allow itself to be named.
Waskievitz paints space as time. Space and time as a single condition: a field where every gesture accumulates, where earlier layers press through the surface, where the figure painted yesterday bleeds into the figure being painted today. To stand before these canvases is to stand inside something that thickens rather than passes. The paint is this thickness, made visible, made carnal, made pressurized. The body in the painting and the body in front of it share the same condition: both made of everything that came before, both in the middle of something still unfinished. It is precisely this temporal density that makes Waskievitz’s painting political in the deepest sense: structurally resistant to the logic of the disposable.
The German Expressionists painted in a world in ruins, after a war that showed what humanity is capable of. Since 2015 we have been living its return, the far right advancing, wars, bodies counted with indifference, fear settled into the daily life of those who make art, who think, who still believe that painting is a political act. Waskievitz looks at this world and makes others in the imagination, and returns with a painting that inhabits chaos, moves through it, and in that slow and carnal time of paint on canvas, creates another world, unreal and absolutely present.
To visit, purchase or enquire about the works:
Natasha Marzliak, Curator, Art Critic, Studio Manager
natmarzliak@gmail.com
______
Publishing in Art Style Magazine is free of charge for anyone. There are no article processing charges or other publication fees. Art Style Magazine is independent and supports the Open Access Movement. The editors of Art Style Magazine cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in essays and articles published on the Art Style Magazine’s website and editions. Authors agree to the terms and conditions and assure that their submissions are free of third parties’ rights. The views and opinions expressed in the essays and articles are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Art Style Magazine. The authors of Art Style Magazine’s essays and articles are responsible for its content. The Art Style Magazine‘s website provides links to third-party websites. However, the magazine is not responsible for the contents of those linked sites, nor for any link contained in the linked site content of external Internet sites (see Terms & Conditions).
Curator: Shane Bradford Dates: 2 May – 30 May, 2026
Union Gallery, 94 Teesdale Street, Bethnal Green, London, E2 6PU
Opening times: Thursday – Saturday 12.00 – 18.00 or by appointment
Isaac Andrews, Dear April, 2026. Oil on linen, 90 x 80 cm
The art of joy as an act of resistance
Ancient philosophies of happiness, commonly (mis)translated as the state of eudaimonia, offer various pathways to personal contentedness, such as hedonism, stoicism, and epicureanism. Fast forward to the extreme now*, and a pure form of happiness proves a slippery conception, alluding even our best attempts at a common consensus.
Subjective experience and faith in the righteous path aside, we are left with a general feeling that happiness is real without really knowing how, or when, we’ve attained it. In The Global West, the commoditisation of happiness renders its fulfilment precariously in line with base rate inflation, and the broadening wealth gap. Confusion reigns, for without the exigence of discontent, what remedies can we sell?
Amidst this backdrop of pervasive Endcore* and the scarcity of optimism as a cultural resource, a personal state of happiness becomes a contrary force, like an act of resistance. State and late Capitalism, arguably once a means to life improvement, have shifted primary output from consumer goods to the production of fear. The presence of fear is a key catalyst of need, need a driver of desire, and desire the main force behind sales.
Art, at its best, has always served as a counterpoint to egomaniacal assumptions of permanence by every societal powerbroker from Nero to Napoleon. Thus, Radical Happiness speculates on how three exemplary early to-mid career painters enact resistance within the framework of painting, harnessing joy as opposition, and conjuring battlements of radical happiness against the prevailing politics of horror.
*Shumon Basar / Flash Art, #341, 2022
Billy Crosby, The Maze Makes the Mouse, 2024. Acrylic and varnish on canvas, 180 x 120 cm
Billy Crosby engages with traditional Western tropes of the ‘pastoral’ in his work, as well as flirting with kawaii, the Japanese penchant for cuteness that has its furry little roots in shyness and vulnerability. Working across painting, as well as blockchain-based digital formats, Crosby transcends the mainstream popular discourse on AI, delivering an alternative aesthetic interpretation of technology’s more optimistic potential. Crosby held his first London solo show, entitled ‘The Meadow’ at Union in October, 2025.
Bunny Hennessey approaches the painted canvas as a site of heightened, embodied expression. Her work begins with first impulses of making, allowing sensation to be moved and held across the surface. Her paintings conjure a synaesthesia, where colour, gesture and texture register as overlapping sensory experiences. The notion of happiness, in Bunny’s hands, traces a weightless route to the stars whilst remaining grounded by her distinctly saturated and deliberately discordant colouration.
Isaac Andrews is a painter of touch, focusing on the poignant but fleeting moments in which human beings breach the social boundaries of intimacy and meaningfully connect with one another. Pleasure is profound, and the ability to isolate and savour life’s more caring acts runs contrary to the prevailing tide of cynical individualism. A bunch of flowers, a warm hug, these are the quotidian micro-events that forge a pathway to the universal experience of humanity. Isaac Andrews deftly singles out positive moments of personal connection as a counterpoint to global negativity.
Bunny Hennessey, False Start, 2025. Acrylic and oil on linen, 76 x 60 cm
Exhibition: Radical Happiness
Artists: Billy Crosby, Bunny Hennessey, Isaac Andrews Curator: Shane Bradford Dates: 2 May – 30 May, 2026 Location: Union Gallery, 94 Teesdale Street, Bethnal Green, London, E2 6PU Opening times: Thursday – Saturday 12.00 – 18.00 or by appointment
Publishing in Art Style Magazine is free of charge for anyone. There are no article processing charges or other publication fees. Art Style Magazine is independent and supports the Open Access Movement. The editors of Art Style Magazine cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in essays and articles published on the Art Style Magazine’s website and editions. Authors agree to the terms and conditions and assure that their submissions are free of third parties’ rights. The views and opinions expressed in the essays and articles are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Art Style Magazine. The authors of Art Style Magazine’s essays and articles are responsible for its content. The Art Style Magazine‘s website provides links to third-party websites. However, the magazine is not responsible for the contents of those linked sites, nor for any link contained in the linked site content of external Internet sites (see Terms & Conditions).
The Pavilion of Ecuador at Biennale Arte 2026 presents Tawna & Oscar, an exhibition that challengesdominant ways of organizing life, knowledge, and territory. Featuring the Tawna collective and OscarSantillán, and curated by Manuela Moscoso with the support of its commissioner, the Museum ofAnthropology and Contemporary Art of Ecuador (MAAC), the project approaches art as a practice ofattention.
Tawna & Oscar brings together the practices of Oscar Santillán and the Tawna collective to present two contemporary ways of thinking and making the world through relation. The project proposes an approach to art that moves away from fixed categories and closed hierarchies, focusing instead on processes of exchange that unfold across bodies, languages, territories, and times.
Curated by Manuela Moscoso, the Pavilion of Ecuador is conceived as a space of attention and listening. Rather than offering a single narrative, it invites visitors to slow down and engage with forms of knowledge that are often overlooked within dominant cultural frameworks. Emerging from Andean Amazonian territories marked by linguistic, cultural, and ecological plurality, the project advances a situated position that understands knowledge as something produced through shared experience and ongoing relation.
The practice of the Tawna collective is rooted in Pan-Amazonian ways of thinking that conceive existence as an active continuity among bodies, territories, and forces. Working from community-based and embodied experiences, Tawna understands sexuality and dreaming as sensitive technologies through which life is oriented, knowledge is transmitted, and care is organized. In their practice, language functions not as distant representation but as a living force that participates in the making of the world, activating connections between the personal, the collective, and the spiritual.
Oscar Santillán’s practice explores what exists beyond established notions of reality: those conditions that escape dominant systems of order and open other ways of perceiving the world. Moving across science, emerging technologies, and ancestral knowledge, his work insists on indeterminacy as a fundamental condition of life. From this perspective, the terrestrial, the technological, and the cosmic are understood as interconnected and continuously shaping one another.
The encounter between Tawna and Santillán does not aim for synthesis or resolution. Instead, it sustains an open space in which different ways of inhabiting and understanding the world can coexist without being reduced to a single framework. Art operates here as a practice that holds this openness, creating the conditions for new forms of perception, relation, and coexistence.
Rather than representing a fixed national identity, Tawna & Oscar proposes a contemporary position grounded in situated knowledge, relation, and material responsibility, offering tools to think with the present and imagine multiple possible worlds.
The Museum of Anthropology and Contemporary Art (MAAC) is a key cultural institution in Ecuador, dedicated to preserving archaeological and modern heritage, promoting contemporary art, and serving as a bridge between the country’s historical memory and its present cultural landscape. As custodian of 60,000 pre-Hispanic archaeological objects and 3,500 works of modern and contemporary art, the MAAC fosters spaces for encounter, critical reflection, and research. With approximately 120,000 annual visitors and a strong public program, it has established itself as a dynamic institution with an international outlook.
CURATOR
MANUELA MOSCOSOis the inaugural Executive and Artistic Director of the Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA) and, in 2025, curated the 2a Bienal das Amazônias. Formerly curator of the Liverpool Biennial (2021) and a senior curator at Museo Tamayo, Moscoso focuses her work on relational, political, and embodied approaches to contemporary art and institutions.
EXHIBITORS
OSCAR SANTILLÁNis an Ecuadorian artist working between Ecuador and the Netherlands. His practice explores science, ancestral technologies, and the concept of the “Anti-world,” dissolving boundaries between the natural and artificial. His work has been shown internationally and he is active in art education.
TAWNAis an anti-colonial collective of Sápara, Kichwa, and mestizo artists founded in 2017. Working with video, photography, and living archives, they create narratives from Amazonian territories through ritual, dreaming, and community-based processes. Their work has been shown internationally.
INSTITUTIONAL LEADERSHIP Romina Muñoz Procel (Vice Minister of Culture of the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, Ecuador), Stephanie García Albán (Executive Director MAAC)
SUPPORTERS Vice Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, Vice Ministry of Tourism, Embassy of the Republic of Ecuador in Italy, Foundation Identidad Nacional, NIRSA, James Fuentes Gallery, Foundation EACHEVE, Livia Benavides Gallery, Global Transport, TAtchers’ Art Management, Colecciona.Art, Pily Estrada Lecaro, Dos Islas Studios, Giada Lusardi
PAVILION OF ECUADOR – ADDRESS: Castello 1636/A, Venice, Italy
OPENING: Wednesday 6 May, 4 PM, RSVP by 4 May to tatchersartmanagement@gmail.com
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC May 9 – November 22, 2026, daily except Monday, free entry. May: 11 – 6 PM, June:
Publishing in Art Style Magazine is free of charge for anyone. There are no article processing charges or other publication fees. Art Style Magazine is independent and supports the Open Access Movement. The editors of Art Style Magazine cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in essays and articles published on the Art Style Magazine’s website and editions. Authors agree to the terms and conditions and assure that their submissions are free of third parties’ rights. The views and opinions expressed in the essays and articles are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Art Style Magazine. The authors of Art Style Magazine’s essays and articles are responsible for its content. The Art Style Magazine‘s website provides links to third-party websites. However, the magazine is not responsible for the contents of those linked sites, nor for any link contained in the linked site content of external Internet sites (see Terms & Conditions).
Art Style Magazine, an online, peer–reviewed publication dedicated to art and culture, invites submissions of extended essays and scholarly articles.
The theme of the upcoming edition is:
Performative Arts: Human and Non-Human Co-Creation, Cultural Diversity, Artificial Intelligence, and Future Visions
During the last decades, the field of performative arts has been reshaped by a convergence of philosophical debates, aesthetic experiments, and rapid technological developments. At the same time, enduring historical trajectories—such as the evolution of the classical theatre concept, the rise of intercultural exchange from the 1920s onward, the radical sociopolitical transformations since 1968, and the institutional bifurcation into state-supported and independent theatres—continue to inform contemporary practice. This special issue seeks to foreground these intertwined dimensions while also addressing the emergent role of artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and related media as co‑creative agents.
The volume aims to assemble scholarly articles and extended essays that:
Re-situate the classical theatre paradigm (dramaturgy, direction, acting, scenography) within current co-creative practices.
Trace intercultural dynamics in performance from the avant-garde encounters of the 1920s through post-colonial and decolonial interventions.
Analyze the impact of the 1968 revolts on notions of authorship, audience participation, and the politics of the stage.
Examine the structural split between state-funded and independent theatres, focusing on funding models, artistic working strategies, and, possibly, the integration of digital technologies.
Critically engage with AI-driven creation, treating algorithmic systems not merely as tools but as potential collaborators within historically informed frameworks.
Project speculative futures for performative arts that synthesize the above strands into coherent theoretical and practical visions.
We encourage submissions that address (but are not limited to) the following topics:
Classical Theatre Foundations – continuity and rupture in dramaturgical structures, staging conventions, and performer-director relationships.
Intercultural Performance Since the 1920s – early cross-cultural exchanges, migration of theatrical forms, and contemporary transnational collaborations.
The 1968 Epoch – anti-institutional movements, participatory aesthetics, and their lasting influence on experimental theatre.
State vs. Independent Theatre – comparative analyses of governance, audience development, and artistic autonomy.
Human–Non‑Human Co‑Creation – collaborative processes involving performers, audiences, AI agents, robots, algorithms, and responsive environments.
AI, AR/VR, and Live Creative Arts – case studies of theatre, dance, music, performance art, and installation employing generative systems, sensor-based interaction, motion capture, and immersive media.
Design of Performative Spaces – adaptive, immersive, and interactive architectures shaped by intelligent systems and participatory audiences.
Ethical, Political, and Ecological Implications – responsibility, sustainability, and post-humanist perspectives on technologically mediated performance.
Speculative Futures – envisioning new dramaturgical scores, performance scores for human-machine ensembles, and educational trajectories.
For detailed submission instructions and formatting requirements, please consult Art Style Magazine’s official guidelines on our website (https://artstyle-editions.org/author-guidelines/). Submission deadline: November 30, 2026. We will get back to you with acceptance or non-acceptance feedback after the reviewers have evaluated your contribution. If your submission is accepted, we will inform you about the publication schedule.
The Art Style Magazine is guided by editor-in-chief Dr. Christiane Wagner, with support from an international editorial board and scientific committee.
Jörg U. Lensing, co-editor for this special edition.
Featured image on the webpage post: “The Triadic Ballet” by Oskar Schlemmer. Dancers: Danilo Cardoso and Phaedra Pisimisi. Photo by Kai Pohler. THEATER DER KLÄNGE’s Production, Düsseldorf, 2017.
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Queen Charlotte’s Ball, London, 1959.
The Story
12th March – 23rd May 2026
Founded twenty-eight years ago, HackelBury traces its origins to the lifelong passion for art shared by Marcus Bury and Sascha Hackel, collectors for more than thirty-six years. This exhibition brings together the works which first ignited their interest in photography and helped shape their collecting philosophy long before the gallery opened. It also celebrates the artists whose practices have defined HackelBury’s identity across the decades.
From modernist masters such as Edward Weston, Margaret Bourke-White and Consuelo Kanaga, to artists who have exhibited at the gallery including Ellen Auerbach, Berenice Abbott and Arnold Newman and to influential contemporary voices such as Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, Joanne Leonard, Doug & Mike Starn, Bill Armstrong and others, the exhibition honours the individuals who have shaped HackelBury’s past and continue to inspire its future.
The works on view — ranging from Irving Penn’s Cigarette No. 111, William Klein’s exuberant painted contacts, Joanne Leonard’s domestic interiors to Margaret Bourke-White historic image of the United Statses Airship ‘Akron’, celebrate the personal and artistic relationships at the heart of the gallery’s story. They also illuminate Sascha and Marcus’s enduring commitment to championing artists who push the boundaries of their medium to create meaningful and contemplative work.
Curated as a “memoir” with selections made by founders Sascha Hackel and Marcus Bury alongside contributions from the HackelBury team, the exhibition offers a shared reflection on the images and artists which resonate at HackelBury. It is a celebration of works, a tribute to the relationships which have shaped HackelBury, and an homage to the artists who continue to define the gallery’s vision.
Joanne Leonard, Street Scene, West Oakland, CA, 1960’s
About HackelBury Fine Art
HackelBury was founded twenty-eight years ago by Marcus Bury and Sascha Hackel. The gallery is committed to championing artists working with the visual arts who push the boundaries of their medium to create meaningful and contemplative work.
The London based gallery initially showcased classic photography from the 20th century including Henri Cartier- Bresson, Berenice Abbott, Malick Sidibe, and Sebastião Salgado. The transition from traditional photography to more conceptual work was as intuitive as it was organic, beginning with artists such as William Klein, Pascal Kern, Doug and Mike Starn, Garry Fabian Miller, Katja Liebmann, Ian McKeever, Stephen Inggs and Bill Armstrong.
In recent years the gallery has taken on emerging artists such as Oli Kellett, Nadezda Nikolova, Alys Tomlinson, Coral Woodbury and Sharon Walters.
Each artist, whether emerging or established, creates work defined by a depth of thought and breadth and consistency of approach. The small group of artists with whom HackelBury work, represent a diversity of practice yet share an artistic integrity which the gallery is fully committed to supporting in the long term.
Irving Penn, Cigarette No. 111, 1974
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The HackelBury Story
Sascha Hackel, co-founder of HackelBury Fine Art, entered the art world not through formal training but through an early love of black-and-white cinema. After moving to London in her twenties, a chance encounter at Hamiltons Gallery gave her an unexpected start in the photography world — a trial week which turned into seven years working with major photographers and learning the market from the inside at a time when photography was scarcely recognised as fine art in the UK.
She and her husband, Marcus Bury, became passionate collectors in the 1990s — the days when an Irving Penn print could still be bought for £1,500 and when viewing 600-lot auctions at Sotheby’s or Christie’s was an education in itself. Their shared instinct for discovering photographers under-recognised in London became the seed of a future gallery.
In 1998, with a one-year-old at home, the couple transformed a dilapidated local frame shop, on Launceston Place, into HackelBury Fine Art. They opened not with glamorous fashion photography but with Roman Vishniac — a statement of seriousness, integrity and historical depth. From the start, they built their programme around artists who had not been properly exhibited in London, developing long-standing relationships defined by trust, loyalty and a deep belief in each artist’s work.
Although rooted in photography, HackelBury has always followed its artists as their practices evolve, supporting shifts across disciplines as naturally as they unfold. Over the years, the gallery has championed photographers moving into new mediums — from drawing to filmmaking — and has worked closely with multidisciplinary voices such as Doug and Mike Starn and Ian McKeever, whose practice bridges photography and painting, and Coral Woodbury, whose work spans image, object and text. This commitment to accompanying artists on their creative journeys has become as central to the gallery’s identity as its dedication to photographic practice itself.
Over 25+ years, HackelBury became known for championing humanist, street and conceptual photography, introducing London to figures such as Pascal Kern, Martine Franck, Malick Sidibe, and later forging decades-long collaborations with artists including Doug and Mike Starn, William Klein and Marc Riboud. Unlike many galleries, they still operate without contracts —relationships sustained by trust, shared values and a commitment to supporting artists through everything from health crises to book publishing.
Through constant shifts in the art world, from the 2008 crash to COVID to a transformed media landscape, the gallery has persisted by staying true to a core ethos: only show artists whose work they would collect themselves; invest deeply and emotionally in every relationship; price work ethically; and prioritise long-term development.
In recent years, a new generation of women artists has entered the programme, reflecting a conscious shift toward nurturing female voices and emerging talents who resonate emotionally and conceptually with the gallery’s history.
The Story exhibition brings all of this together — not a retrospective of artists, but a meditation on 29 years of relationships, instincts, risks and quiet revolutions within the photography world.
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Camilla Cañellas – Culturebeam | Cultural Communications
Publishing in Art Style Magazine is free of charge for anyone. There are no article processing charges or other publication fees. Art Style Magazine is independent and supports the Open Access Movement. The editors of Art Style Magazine cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in essays and articles published on the Art Style Magazine’s website and editions. Authors agree to the terms and conditions and assure that their submissions are free of third parties’ rights. The views and opinions expressed in the essays and articles are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Art Style Magazine. The authors of Art Style Magazine’s essays and articles are responsible for its content. The Art Style Magazine‘s website provides links to third-party websites. However, the magazine is not responsible for the contents of those linked sites, nor for any link contained in the linked site content of external Internet sites (see Terms & Conditions).
Green Agency: Katia Huemer on Curating Beyond the Trend
An Interview with Katia Huemer by Mei-Hsin Chen, PhD, Professor at the University of Navarra, Spain
Preamble
The following interview explores the intersection of aesthetic ambition and ecological responsibility within the framework of the Kunsthaus Graz (Fig. 1), Austria. Architecturally iconic and affectionately known as the ‘Friendly Alien,’ the Kunsthaus stands as a biomimetic landmark in the city of Graz, Styria—a region famously dubbed the ‘Green Heart of Austria.’ However, beneath its avant-garde skin, the institution is navigating a profound internal transformation, having recently earned the Austrian Ecolabel (Österreichisches Umweltzeichen) as an accredited ‘Green Museum.’
In this conversation, I sit down with Katia Huemer, one of the key curators at the Kunsthaus Graz whose practice is defined by a rigorous commitment to contextual integration. Huemer offers a candid look at the ‘state of constant negotiation’ that defines modern curating—from the logistical paradoxes of international shipping and the material waste of monumental installations to the transformative potential of ‘Green’ institutional DNA. Through her reflections, we move beyond the theory of sustainability to examine the practical, ethical, and often conflicting realities of the museum as a catalyst for political agency.
Interview
I. Regional Roots: Art in the Styrian Landscape
Mei-Hsin Chen (MC): Given the Kunsthaus Graz’s steadfast commitment to ‘Sustainable Thinking, how would you describe the specific ecological or sustainability themes—moving beyond the broad discourse of climate change—that are currently being interrogated by contemporary artists in Graz and Styria? I am particularly interested in how local practitioners address regional specificities, such as the Styrian landscape—I am thinking of artists like Markus Jeschaunig—resource management, or the localized waste streams explored in the exhibition Feeding the Ghost (September 17, 2025– November 2, 2025), which you curated.
Katia Huemer (KH): To address your question, I would like to highlight an artist other than Markus Jeschaunig. A particularly resonant example in this context is the Styrian artist Anita Fuchs. Her practice is profoundly process-oriented and defined by a meticulous sensitivity to local environments, investigating the intersections of nature within both urban and rural landscapes.
Fuchs frequently operates at the nexus of art and science, often collaborating with researchers. A primary example is her project Versuchsfeld (Test Field), an ongoing artistic research initiative conducted over several years at locations such as the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna and the Graz Opera House. In these interventions, Fuchs replaces ecologically unproductive turf with curated seed mixtures specifically designed to support pollinators like bees and butterflies. This transformation—from a sterile lawn to a species-rich wild plant habitat—is shared with the public through workshops, lectures, and meticulous documentation. She exemplifies the artist who works with extreme local specificity.
For our upcoming Bloom project (running from March 21 to November 8, 2026) (Fig. 2), which involves eight institutions within the Universal Museum Joanneum, we have commissioned Fuchs to conduct a survey of flora within a 500-meter radius of each site. She composes bouquets from these findings without distinguishing between wild growth, domestic gardens, or commercial flower shops. The resulting work—presented through photography rather than the ephemeral bouquets themselves—serves as a poignant commentary on biodiversity, seasonality, and the complexities of the global flower trade.
On a different note, your research might benefit from examining the art collection of Martin Roth’s family here in Styria. Roth’s family operates Saubermacher, a private waste management and recycling firm, and they have curated a collection that focuses specifically on the themes of resources and waste. From time to time, they commission local artists—such as the media artist Richard Kriesche and the sculptor Hans Kupelwieser —to create works that engage with the company’s core mission of sustainability.
Finally, I must mention Martin Roth (1977-2019) himself, an exceptionally talented artist who was deeply invested in these themes. In 2023, the Kunsthaus hosted a posthumous exhibition of his work titled You can see more from far away (February 10 – May 21, 2023), curated by Katrin Bucher Trantow and Michaela Leutzendorff Pakesch. This project presented both a professional and ethical challenge, as it involved living animals. We had to navigate the delicate balance between honoring his artistic vision and adhering to stringent animal protection protocols. It was a profound exhibition.
II. Material Paradoxes: Innovation vs. Protocol
MC: Your curatorial portfolio suggests a profound emphasis on process. Could you elaborate on how you evaluate and champion artists who are pushing the boundaries of sustainable materiality, closed-loop systems, or innovative, low-impact production techniques? Furthermore, how is the dialogue between artistic innovation and ecological ethics navigated in the presentation of these works?
KH: That is an exceptionally complex and nuanced challenge. The nature of this dialogue depends heavily on the individual temperament of the artist; some practitioners maintain such specific aesthetic visions that they allow for very little flexibility. This tension is often amplified when working with artist estates. For instance, in our current exhibition, Unseen Futures to Come Fall (September 18, 2025–February 15, 2026), curated by Andreja Hribernik, we are featuring Bill Viola’s magnificent work, The Raft. We initially envisioned presenting it in an open configuration that would harmonize with the organic, biomimetic architecture of our ‘Friendly Alien.’ However, the estate’s stringent protocols required a traditional ‘black-box’ environment. Consequently, we were compelled to construct an elaborate temporary architecture for this single piece—a process that consumes significant resources only to be dismantled post-exhibition.
There is also a distinct difference between curating solo and group exhibitions. In group shows—such as my recent Project 24/7: Work between meaning and imbalance (May 1, 2024–January 19, 2025), which examined the intersection of labor and ecology—the institution maintains greater agency over the spatial design. For that exhibition, we utilized industrial heavy-duty shelving as our primary architectural framework. After the show concluded, these components were repurposed as permanent storage in our archives, embodying a practical, circular approach to exhibition design.
On an institutional level, the Kunsthaus is constantly striving to refine its internal workflows as an accredited ‘Green Museum.’ We are transitioning toward digital formats to minimize paper consumption and are increasingly committed to the reuse of exhibition architecture. A significant milestone in this journey is our collaboration with the City of Graz and Markt der Zukunft, culminating in the Environmental Art Award, presented for the first time in 2025.
Ultimately, we inhabit a state of constant negotiation. While we strive to feature international artists, the logistical realities of carbon-heavy transport and non-sustainable materials often present a profound ethical conflict. I frequently reflect on Katharina Grosse’s 2014 exhibition , which featured a monumental spatial sculpture composed of vast amounts of synthetic foam. At the time, it was an extraordinary aesthetic achievement, but if proposed today, I doubt the institution—or perhaps even the artist—would choose that material path. We mitigated the impact by donating the foam to local kindergartens and for industrial insulation, but the paradox remains: it was a brilliant exhibition that generated a staggering amount of waste. I believe that as long as we remain transparent about these ‘wrong’ decisions and use them as catalysts for institutional learning, we continue to move the system forward.
III. Aesthetic Agency: Art as a Catalyst for Change
MC: The magnitude of the contemporary ecological crisis demands a holistic perspective. How have the artists you collaborate with interpreted concepts such as ‘integral ecology,’ or navigated the intersection of environmental degradation with social, labor, and economic realities? Furthermore, have you observed a burgeoning trend toward interdisciplinary, research-based artistic practices within the Graz creative community?
KH: While I cannot provide a definitive sociological assessment of Graz specifically, there is an undeniable global shift toward interdisciplinary works that engage with these systemic issues. For instance, we recently hosted a symposium for Emilija Škarnulytė’s exhibition, Waters and Beyond (November 8, 2025–February 15, 2026), which examines water as a multifaceted political, poetic, and ecological force.
One of our keynote speakers, the curator and author Filipa Ramos, addressed a poignant question from the audience: Can art truly effect change in the face of such overwhelming global crises? Ramos argued that environmental issues are, at their core, aesthetic problems. They are inextricably linked to human desire and our subjective definitions of beauty and value.
Ramos also reflected on her experience participating in the 13th Shanghai Biennale as head of research and publications, noting the intense governmental oversight aimed at neutralizing systemic critique. Her conclusion was profound: art is taken most seriously by those who fear its influence. It possesses a transformative potential that extends far beyond the confines of the art world. Because art holds a vital social role and the power to catalyze a collective desire for change, our mission is to support and promote works that embrace this political agency and offer radical new perspectives.
IV. Contextual Integration: Bridging Local and Global
MC: How do the unique cultural and environmental landscapes of Graz and Styria—the ‘Green Heart of Austria’—shape artistic responses to global ecological crises? Furthermore, what is your curatorial strategy for integrating these distinct local voices into the broader, international discourse on eco-art?
KH: As an international venue, the Kunsthaus Graz is committed to bridging the gap between regional practice and global visibility. Our strategy is built on the principle of contextual integration: rather than isolating local art, we feature it within curated group exhibitions that juxtapose Austrian perspectives with international counterparts. This dialogue is reinforced through our publishing efforts. By including local artists in our exhibition catalogues and distributing those volumes through our global museum library network, we ensure their work enters the international academic and artistic record. Ultimately, our goal is to maintain a rigorous balance, elevating local and international artists with equal weight—an approach that applies across our entire program, well beyond the scope of ecological themes.
V. The Power of Narrative: Storytelling and Humor
MC: In your experience, what narrative strategies or visual approaches—whether poetic, activist, analytical, or speculative—have proven most effective in contemporary Austrian art for stimulating critical reflection? Furthermore, how can artistic practice move beyond mere observation to encourage genuine behavioral change or a deeper ecological consciousness among the public?
KH: That is a challenging question to address, but in my experience, the most effective way to engage an audience is through the power of storytelling—by making it clear how these global crises intersect with their individual lives. I have also found that a measured use of humor serves as an essential icebreaker for otherwise heavy or daunting topics.
A compelling example is Christoph Schwarz’s film Supercargo (2010), which we featured in the 24/7 exhibition. Schwarz, a Vienna-based Austrian filmmaker and climate activist, documents his journey to China aboard a massive container ship for an artist residency. He is essentially the only passenger, surrounded entirely by empty containers waiting to be filled with consumer goods for the return trip to Europe. The film is incredibly witty; as the journey progresses, the isolation leads him to form increasingly absurd and lonely relationships with the containers.
Yet, beneath the humor, Schwarz provides staggering visual evidence of the ecological toll of global shipping. While we are theoretically aware of the environmental damage caused by these vessels, many remain oblivious to the vast number of emptynautical miles traveled purely to sustain a culture of hyper-consumption. I believe such works resonate far more deeply than those that rely on alarmism. Schwarz is an excellent example of an artist who has found a way to integrate climate activism into art that is charming rather than alienating. His project Cabriobeet (2021)— in which he transformed a car in Vienna into a neighborhood garden bed—serves as a brilliant symbolic critique of the spatial privileges afforded to private motorized transport in our cities.
VI. Institutional DNA: Sustaining the Green Museum
MC: The fact that the Kunsthaus Graz holds the Austrian Ecolabel is a significant point of pride and responsibility. As an accredited Green Museum, how does the institution integrate sustainability into its curatorial and operational DNA? Furthermore, how does this institutional commitment influence your decision-making when conceptualizing exhibitions with an ecological focus?
KH: Sustainability considerations are embedded in our daily operations and, depending on how one defines the term, deeply influence our programming. To ensure a lasting impact rather than a series of ephemeral interventions, we organize our program around annual themes. This structure allows one exhibition to flow conceptually into the next, facilitating a sustained discourse over a longer duration. This approach is vital for transcending short-term thinking and fostering a more permanent sustainable consciousness.
In addition to our physical exhibitions, we launch annual social media projects dedicated to themes such as ecology, the climate crisis, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A key example is our project centered on the 93 Recommendations of the Austrian Climate Council (Klimarat). These recommendations unfortunately received limited public attention, so we commissioned artists to create works that re-introduced these critical issues to a wider audience. I believe digital platforms are uniquely suited for such initiatives because they are highly accessible; they help lower the institutional threshold for those who might otherwise find a traditional museum environment intimidating.
VII. Radical Honesty: Learning from Curatorial Conflict
MC: I am curious to explore the practical challenges you have navigated in your personal curatorial experience. Have you ever encountered a conceptually brilliant artwork that posed a significant challenge to the museum’s own sustainability goals—perhaps due to carbon-heavy logistics or high-energy requirements? How do you navigate that curatorial conflict, and where do you draw the line when an artwork’s ecological message appears at odds with its means of production?
KH: As I previously mentioned with Bill Viola and Katharina Grosse, these contradictions are a constant presence. Recently, I navigated a situation where the ecological themes I perceived in an artist’s work stood in stark contrast to their personal actions—specifically regarding frequent air travel. I find it increasingly difficult to justify unnecessary air miles, and I must admit that such realizations can diminish my appreciation for the work. It prompts a self-reflective question: was my interpretation of the work skewed by my own values, or was I perhaps focusing too heavily on an ecological aspect that the artist did not intend?
As curators, we must be vigilant. We cannot treat sustainability as a ‘trend’ to be followed just because many artists are currently riding that wave. The climate crisis is the defining challenge of our era, and while it is natural for artists to engage with it, we must distinguish between genuine commitment and superficial alignment.
Reflecting on Katharina Grosse’s 2014 solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus, she created a monumental, painterly spatial sculpture using enormous quantities of synthetic foam. It was an extraordinary aesthetic achievement, but looking back a decade later, I doubt we—or even the artist herself—would make those same material choices today. We did attempt to mitigate the impact by donating the material for industrial insulation and to local kindergartens for play areas, with the remainder being recycled. Yet, the paradox remains: it was a landmark exhibition that generated a staggering volume of waste. I believe we all inhabit these conflicts. As long as we remain honest about the wrong decisions we make and treat them as essential learning opportunities, there is a path forward.
Author’s Note and Acknowledgements
This interview, conducted on October 7, 2025, stems from the research project Art and Ecology at the University of Graz, funded by the University of Navarra. I am deeply grateful to the Department of Art History and Musicology for the scholarly environment provided during my stay, and to Prof. Sabine Flach and Dr. Katrin Nahidi for their guidance. Special thanks to the Kunsthaus Graz for their openness, specifically Director Andreja Hribernik and Katia Huemer for their generous collaboration and expertise.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Throughout the text, additional information and links have been provided to assist the reader in further exploring the artists, exhibitions, and institutional frameworks discussed.
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Sabrina Shah, Toys, 77.5 x 122cm, Acrylic and oil on paper, 2026.
Paintings by Sabrina Shah on surfaces by Shane Bradford
Trespass
Sabrina Shah
Shane Bradford
Trespass is an unusual collaboration between Union curator Shane Bradford and painter Sabrina Shah. The project is intended to test the jurisdiction of creative authorship in a traditional gallery setting. While these works are firmly Shah’s painting, the fact that they have been painted on top of abandoned former works by Bradford defines the series. Doubts arise. Questions are posed: what does it mean to trespass? Where is the consent?
To all these queries there is only one reliable response: the exhibition itself. A complex curatorial conundrum has been initiated, the outcome of which is visible in the actual event of the exhibition experience. If there are answers, they reside within the dynamism of Shah’s brushstrokes and the inherent surprise of the unpremeditated symbiosis between the protagonists.
Sabrina Shah, First Place, 152 x 122cm, Acrylic and oil on paper mounted on canvas, 2026.
Sabrina Shah, 121, 75 x 60cm, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2026.
Shah’s spontaneous, unfiltered, and immediate paint-handling is supported by the show’s context, allowing for the event to remain in progress. The imagery often depicts participatory social happenings to which the viewer is invited. The result is a gloriously jarring and unexpected extension of Shah’s painterly psycho-dramatic fiction.
Shah has a history of reworking her older paintings. The previous layers and scars are important. This time, however, her imagery responds to the incomplete narrative threads of Bradford’s beginnings’. Suggestive traces of basketball courts, road traffic barriers, and abandoned train tracks are picked-up on and answered with animals, characters, toys, and games. 1,2,3. First, second, and third. Is anybody winning?
Sabrina Shah, Six, 152 x 122cm, Acrylic and oil on paper mounted on canvas, 2026.
While Bradford’s backgrounds perform the dual role of story and substrate to provide an authentic foundation for Shah’s primary interventions, an intimate yet delightfully unstable bond is formed. Despite the literal cover-up there is no hiding; the uncertain friction between object and ground makes for an atmosphere of palpable vitality. There’s a raw honesty in the dynamic fusion of the paintings that perfectly platforms Shah’s naturally expressive and distinctive idiosyncrasies.
Exhibition: Sabrina Shah – Trespass Dates: 5 March – 11 April, 2026 Opening preview: Saturday 28 February 2026, 5– 8 pm
Opening times: Thursday – Saturday 12.00 – 18.00 or by appointment
Publishing in Art Style Magazine is free of charge for anyone. There are no article processing charges or other publication fees. Art Style Magazine is independent and supports the Open Access Movement. The editors of Art Style Magazine cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in essays and articles published on the Art Style Magazine’s website and editions. Authors agree to the terms and conditions and assure that their submissions are free of third parties’ rights. The views and opinions expressed in the essays and articles are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Art Style Magazine. The authors of Art Style Magazine’s essays and articles are responsible for its content. The Art Style Magazine‘s website provides links to third-party websites. However, the magazine is not responsible for the contents of those linked sites, nor for any link contained in the linked site content of external Internet sites (see Terms & Conditions).
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