‘A Curious Cloud’

Bench Allen, Ned Elliott, Rebecca Holmes, Katherine Jones, Arrow Lai Siu Wai, Sara Lee, Daisy Nutting and James Randell

13th of March - 27th of April

A Curious Cloud offers an introduction to the possibilities of printmaking, to coincide with the 1-year anniversary of the print studio at Soho Revue. The exhibition brings together 8 London-based artists working across a range of printmaking processes, and presents the artist as nephrologist (cloud-studier).

Bench Allen is a London based printmaker and illustrator from Plymouth. Known for his encyclopaedic documenting of natural history and specialising in nautical narratives; his work is inspired by the beauty of the natural and unnatural world - from the Mariana Trench to the Crab Nebula. He is a printmaker with Jealous Print Studio, working on screen-printed editions for artists around the world.

Ned Elliott is an artist from London. He takes an introspective approach to the experience of existence, not only in the tangible world but also in the intangible feelings associated with it, whether angst, joy, confusion, love, or grief. His creative approach blends observation and abstraction with the ethereal quality of dreams and aims to capture the transience of existence. By using a mix of wet and dry media and elements of collage to overlay figures and objects he attempts to depict how different elements of existence, whether sentient or not, intersect and coexist in the world whilst also appreciating the confusing and elusive beauty of life and inevitable death. His work is imbued with an agnostic almost animistic spirituality.

Rebecca Holmes graduated from Loughborough University of Art and Design, where she studied Fine Art, in 2011. Since then, her practice has focused on drawing and printmaking. She is a member of East London Printmakers and recently exhibited at The London Original Print Fair, The Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, and Eames Fine Art.

Though rendered with precision, the landscapes Rebecca depicts are a composite of figurative elements, discrete natural phenomena, recorded with pencil and photography, cut up, distorted and combined to create an unnatural location, one which speaks as directly to the emotions as it does to the senses.

‘I am far more interested in how a place makes me feel, what response I have to it, rather than how it “really” looks. I always try to go beyond appearance, to reach around and through it, to strive for something more essential. And it is often in the printing itself, a process never entirely predictable, always open to chance, that I discover what this essence actually is.’

Katherine Jones is a contemporary British artist who combines painting and traditional printmaking techniques, bringing together disparate narratives in hyper-real or folkloric spaces. Perceptions of safety and danger are often presented using archetypal motifs such as a house, flower, sun or tree. Jones is currently a visiting lecturer in Fine Art Printmaking at universities and colleges across the United Kingdom and Europe.
She was elected as a Royal Academician in 2022. Public collections include the V&A Prints And Drawings Collection, The Ashmolean Museum, Yale University Library and The House Of Lords.

Sara Lee’s practice involves walking in and working from the land, often on coastal routes, followed by extended studio-based work. Her quiet images invoke a sense of calm and invite the viewer to pause and contemplate the importance of landscape and our profound relationship with it, especially at this time of ominous environmental change. She works predominantly with drawing and print.

She exhibits widely and her work is held in public and private collections internationally, including Pallant House Gallery, Tama Collection, Japan, United Therapeutics Collection, USA and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Born in Wales, Sara Lee studied at Ravensbourne and Central Schools of Art. She lives and works in London.

Daisy Nutting is a painter and printmaker, graduating from Kingston School of Art with a BA in Fine Art and Art History in 2019 and The Royal Drawing School in 2021. She is a workshop facilitator with The Royal Drawing School, The Drawing Room and The Royal Academy of Art.

Nutting creates microcosmic scenes of temporal chaos, exploring ideas of solitude and togetherness, turbulence and transcendence, and the simultaneous beauty and brutality of the natural world. With influences spanning Pieter Bruegel the Elder through Paula Rego, her intricate practice pays homage to, and expands upon, printmaking and drawing tradition to offer up a subtle yet shrewd commentary on the modern condition.

James Randell is a printmaker, multidisciplinary artist and educator from south-east London and based in Camberwell. He graduated from a BA Fine Art (International) at the University of Leeds and University of California Berkeley in 2015, and an MA in Art Education, Culture & Practice at UCL in 2023. When not in the studio, James is a facilitator with charity Bow Arts and a print technician at Soho Revue Gallery, collaborating on print editions with emerging artists.

Randell is interested in narrative structures, and how chance collisions, erasure and reappropriation can give rise to new stories or shed light on old ones. He pursues this interest through found objects and imagery in collage, print, painting, model-making, and performance, with a particular interest in both toxic and beautiful masculine cultures, society's cyclical fears about the end of the world and the aesthetics of English folk art and popular pastimes.

Arrow Lai Siu Wai is a printmaker from Hong Kong. He works primarily with woodcuts and presents them in the forms of prints, moving images, and videos. His practice focuses on exploring self-identity as a Hong Konger in relationship with the everyday happenings and engagements in his society. He is now a full-time lecturer in printmaking in Hong Kong.

Arrow graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hon) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) in Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2016 and MA Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 2023. His works have been exhibited internationally in Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, India and Spain, including at Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2023, Bainbridge Open 2023 at ASC Gallery, Third Floor at Royal College of Art, Two-Fold at Southwark Park Galleries, Fleeting Moment at Fine Liquids Art Gallery, Impact 11 at Hong Kong Open Printshop.