Eight art galleries in Fitzrovia are offering exhibitions for art lovers to enjoy on one evening in May.
Coningsby, Lungley, Gallery Rosenfeld, Rhodes Contemporary, Pi Artworks, Fitzrovia Gallery, Vitrine, and Workplace are all part of the Fitzrovia lates event, on Thursday 25 May, dubbed Yamo Lates after gowithYamo — a new digital art platform.
The list of eight lates:
Kay Gasei’s Black Box Series at Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ. Gasei will be painting live at the opening, offering a unique insight into the working process of an artist recently tipped as one of Artnet’s “artists to watch”. Exhibition continues until 29 May.
Robin Megannity: Call of the Void, at Workplace, 50 Mortimer Street, London W1W 7RP. Inspired by the French phrase L’appel du vide, describing the desire to jump or fall from high places, the Manchester-based artist’s paintings thrive in the apparently contradictory state where the ubiquitous meets the sublime. In drawing comparisons between the melancholy stillness of Northern European still-life paintings with contemporary digital image-making, Megannity’s work breaks down boundaries both formal and temporal. Exhibition continues until 4 June.
Jamie Fitzpatrick: Psycho Home Counties, at Vitrine Fitzrovia, 38 Riding House Street, London W1W 7ES. Sculpture, paintings on paper, animatronics and audio for a trip down a tangled narrative blending personal experiences with British folklore. Personal and collective mental health and illnesses shape an alternate vision of the Home Counties, providing a stark look into the contemporary national consciousness through emotion and humour. Exhibition continues until 10 June.
Toxic Arts Collective: Vandal, at The Fitzrovia Gallery, 139 Whitfield St, London W1T 5EN. The inaugural pop-up exhibition of Toxic Arts collective, Vandal takes an eye to the history of graffiti, questioning just where the value in art comes from, and why the value ascribed to painting and sculpture is disregarded when it comes to so-called “vandalism”. With the roots of graffiti stretching back to ancient times, the cultural importance of vandalism is investigated in works by Liam Fallon, Peter Fried, Fipsi Seilern, Chris Cawkwell, Blok and Arlo Sinclair. Exhibition continues until 27 May.
Cherry Aribisala and David Olatoye: Tête-a-Tête, at Pi Artworks, 55 Eastcastle St, London W1W 8EG. A duo exhibition featuring the works of emerging Nigerian contemporary painters Cherry Aribisala, based in the UK and David Olatoye, based in Nigeria. Co-curated by Jade Turanli and Kayode Adegbola, the exhibition triggers a dialogue between the two artists whose practices transcend the realm of portraiture and point towards the future of contemporary African art.
Maya Balcioglu: Katabasis: journey to the underworld, at Lungley Gallery, 2nd Floor, 53 Great Portland Street, London W1W 7LG. Questioning the very nature of what makes an image an image, Balcioglu’s practice incorporates woven textures and fibres in a philosophical exploration of the elemental nature of materials in work which also references the ancient Greek rituals of katabasis. Exhibition will continue until 8 July.
Girjesh Kumar Singh: Life in the Rubble, at Gallery Rosenfeld, 37 Rathbone Street, London W1T 1NZ. Indian artist, Girjesh Kumar Singh, tackles the history of humanism. Life in The Rubble features an installation of 15 sculpted human heads, created from broken bricks found in the rubble of destroyed buildings. The accompanying exhibition Looking at the Human, showcases a collection of sculptural heads from 450 BC to early 20th Century. Exhibition will continue until 8 July.
Tavar Zawacki: Papel, at Rhodes Contemporary Art, 61 Great Portland Street, London W1W 7LL. In February 2020, just one month before the spread of the global pandemic, Tavar Zawacki left his home in Berlin and moved to Bali, Indonesia. The months of restriction brought about by the pandemic enabled Tavar to paint in isolation for 9-10 hours a day, developing new artistic styles in the process. The pieces now work as an expression of personal — and global — anxieties caused by the event. Exhibition will continue until 27 May.
Yamo Lates: Fitzrovia, an evening of exclusive late night viewings, live painting, and an opportunity to meet an international roster of artists at each venue. Various locations, 6pm to 9.30pm, Thursday 25 May 2023. There is no entry fee. You are free to turn up at each participating venue.
Another art gallery also opened this month. Night Cafe, at 162 New Cavendish Street. Despite its name its opening hours are 12noon to 6pm, Thursday to Saturday.