ART AT WRAP
A space that breathes…
From textiles and photography, to painting and prints, we pride ourselves in providing a free exhibition space to local artists in our Business Centre.
Want to buy? Want to exhibit? Want to host a panel talk? Get in touch!
Reciprocity is where it’s at with art at WRAP! By providing free space to exhibit work, WRAP’s spaces are brought to life with the varied and vibrant work of local artists. In turn, the artists’ work - which would otherwise be taking up much needed space in their studios - can be seen and sold in between proper exhibitions, shows, and sales.
We look for work to fill our spaces for around 6 months at a time, and the work can be sold through WRAP. See below for the current artists exhibiting with us…
SALES
All sales are conducted directly with the artist. Please refer to contact details next to the artworks or send an email to hello@wrap.space
Currently on Display
-
Tania Rutland
Tania was Born in 1967, London. She now lives Brighton, where she moved to after graduating from the Royal College of Art. She has had her studio there for over twenty-five years. Rutland has exhibited her work in numerous galleries. She has exhibited extensively both in the UK and internationally. She has also completed many commissions for both commercial projects and private collections.
She specialises in semi abstract landscapes of Sussex and the beautiful South Downs.
countryside.
-
Cecilia Volpi
Cecilia Volpi is an Italian photographer based in Edinburgh, who completed her studies at Edinburgh Napier University with a Bachelor degree of Photography.
She shoots a diverse range of subjects, focusing on film unit stills, behind the scenes, event photography and portraiture. Her personal work is characterised by a cinematic style and a love for experimental lighting and neon aesthetics.
-
Daniel J. G.
Daniel J.G. is a self taught artist making work about his experience as a Deaf Sign Language user living with poor mental health. Inspired by the beauty of the natural world and the positive impact being in nature can have on mental health, Daniel has spent countless hours studying the colours, shapes, textures and lighting of landscapes. He draws on all these visual references and the emotions they evoke to produce colourful abstract paintings rich in meaning. Through his paintings Daniel aims to share his story and connect with people through the visual language of art rather than spoken words.
-
Philip Cole
Philip's journey to painting and making is via the sciences. At the University of Brighton, he first encountered polyester resin and over the last 20 years has been experimenting with its possibilities. Philip has an ongoing interest in the printing registration marks and the packaging in which we find the things we buy because we need to, and we want to. These things may be peripheral, but their importance lies in what clues they give about the way life is at the moment in this Anthropocene age.
-
Nina Garstang
Nina’s practice currently has two strands: traditional oil paints onto canvas or panel and enamel style paints on to glass. Her work contemplates the middle ground between what is real and what is not, pushing the view of the objects she paints to the point where they lose their identity, thus revealing an altered view, that could be looking to the universe or travelling deep inside the body.
-
Ian Boutell
Ian Boutell is a hard edge abstract artist, trained originally as an architect where he worked on Trellick Tower, now a listed brutalist building. Currently a painter based the Phoenix Artspace in Brighton where with colleagues he has co-curated two H_A_R_D_P_A_I_N_T_I_N_G exhibitions. Boutell also curates #cottage_of~moden_art an Instagram and Facebook gallery that show a single artwork at a time to best interest the audience and concentrate the mind
-
Geoff Hands
Geoff Hands was born in London although he spent much of his childhood in Shropshire where he attended Shrewsbury School of Art. He graduated from West Surrey College of Art & Design with a BA (Hons) degree in Painting in 1979. He then spent a year in Wales before settling in Brighton in 1981 and establishing a teaching career in FE and HE in Eastbourne, Horsham and Worthing. More recently he has contributed to the short course programme at West Dean College near Chichester.
Geoff Hands’ practice involves both en plein air and studio work in painting and drawing media, augmented by collage and printmaking
-
Abigail Downey
Photography is a deeply personal creative outlet and a way for me to connect and hold onto the fleeting moments of passing time. Only pursued as a hobby, I capture everyday, mundane, intimate, personal moments of nature and people. Snapshots that happen by chance, are spontaneous and not-posed.
-
Michael Boyd
Michael Boyd’s imagination is occupied by magical creatures and far-away lands. Through a combination of observational drawing and detailed rendering of these mystical places and beings, he builds a visual landscape that is eerily familiar.
Collaging from various natural imagery and an archive of whimsical daydreams collected since his childhood, Michael creates drawings that emerge as postcards from a world not too distant from our own.
-
Riley Wallis
Riley is a Canadian abstract painter and designer currently based in London. She creates vibrant and playful abstract paintings that celebrate the magic in the everyday. Her paintings are intuitive translations of experiences; impressions of what it means to be human through an abstract lens. The paintings often illustrate a sense of movement to mimic the fluidity of experience, with bold brushstrokes to strike balance between control and chaos.
WRAP at Photo Fringe 2024
We are delighted to announce we are collaborating with Brighton Photo Fringe 2024 as venue partners! Across the month of October*, we will be displaying projects from: Mansi Ambhore, Olivia Cooper, Alan Gignoux, Daniel J. G. , Adam Isler, Priyanka Pattni and Mingyi Sung.
Visitors can come in the space and view artworks during the following opening times:
● Mon-Fri 9 AM - 5.30 PM (Note: for large group viewings, please contact us in advance for availability)
Special openings:
● Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of October: WRAP will be open for the Photo Fringe opening weekend between 10.30 AM - 6.30 PM. Exhibiting artists will be on-site for a chance to meet visitors and talk them through their respective projects
● Friday 11th of October 6 PM - 9 PM: WRAP will be open for the private view evening of ‘Views in Transition’, the 4th edition of our display of artworks from local and UK-based artists. This is a great occasion to meet exhibitors in a relaxed and informal environment while enjoying a complimentary glass of Prosecco on arrival! A bar will be open in our Loft where additional drinks (including soft drinks) can be purchased. Join the invite list by booking a place on Eventbrite.
Exhibiting Artists
Alan Gignoux, ‘YOU CAN SEE ME, BUT I DON’T EXIST’
While photographing refugees in France, Belgium, Austria, and Sweden in 2018, Alan Gignoux noticed that a recurring theme among them was the gradual erosion of self, resulting from prolonged periods of living at the fringes of society. Similarly, he heard many of them talk of being invisible both to the immigration bureaucracies and to the wider societies in the countries in which they were seeking asylum.
He was particularly struck by the words of a young Afghan man in his final year at school who was seeking asylum in Sweden: “You can see me, but I don’t exist.” The young man was awaiting a response to his third and final appeal for permission to remain in the country and was expressing frustration at the way in which the asylum process had suspended him for years in a no man’s land of enforced separation from Swedish society. Borrowing its title from the Afghan man’s words, this UK-based project aims to explore the dehumanisation experienced by people seeking refuge.
Olivia Cooper, ‘Warm Olive’
Warm Olive delves into Cooper’s Indian-British mixed-race heritage. Often reflecting on both her British heritage from her father and Indian heritage from her mother, Cooper’s work reveals the blends and clashes between both, and the search for where and how she belongs. Her practice involves and weaves together constructed imagery, self-portraiture, set design and creative writing to elevate the overall narrative within her work, using a constructed documentary style.
Ming-Yi Sung, ‘Looking for Nirvana’
Looking for Nirvana explores Sung’s personal journey of non-monogamy and its unexpected link to childhood trauma. An open relationship with her boyfriend led to self-reflection, prompting her to confront the lasting effects of her upbringing on intimacy and self-esteem. Through portraits and text, Sung embarks on a feminist exploration, unravelling the complexities of how personal histories affect our lives and reshaping an understanding of love.
Kerry Holland, ‘Journey Through the World’
Journey through Worlds focuses on an exploratory journey through the real, the virtual and the alternate. It provides an environment to observe the interactions of the worlds to see how they interlope and phase through each other yet focuses on serene natural settings of fauna and flora to allow for a more visually direct connection between one world and another. The video aims to bring about a peaceful almost utopic atmosphere while also beginning to gently spark questions about journeys and experiences beyond the real world.
Priyanka Pattni, ‘May You Not Get Evil’
May You Not Get Evil explores cultural rituals within Pattni’s Indian heritage, passed down by the women in her family. Pattni recreates these moments in a studio setting, as the use of the studio allows for a sense of privacy and the reclamation of control over space. The project works closely with minimal set design, paying close attention to small details that give into the significant importance behind the rituals and the memories that they hold for Pattni; whilst using self-portraiture to reconcile with her sense of self and the space that they take up as a person of colour within western society.
Daniel J. G. , ‘Wild Emotions’
Daniel J. G. has an established painting practice but has returned to analogue photography to present this, his first photography exhibition as part of an Arts Council funded R&D project exploring Deaf experiences of mental health.
In keeping with the theme of this year's Photo Fringe festival, this exhibition seeks to find common ground between Daniel’s painting practice and his new photography work. Whichever medium Daniel works in, landscapes and the land are always central to his creative inquiry.
The photographs in this exhibition were taken during a recent trip to Devon and Cornwall - places Daniel often visits for inspiration - including a visit to Wistman’s Wood, one of Britain's last remaining ancient temperate rainforests on Dartmoor believed to date back to c. 7000 BCE. Difficult to locate and access, Daniel spent many hours there observing how it changed with the weather and the emotions it evoked - experiencing a strong bodily connection with this sacred place and landscape.
Adam Isler, ‘Insomnia’
In Insomnia Isler looks at aging in long-term couples. As men grow older, they often find it hard to stay asleep; for older women, conversely, it is often difficult falling asleep in the first place. Insomnia is a lonely place, even beside your partner. Insomnia is a sub-project of Modern Romance, exploring intimacy and distance in older couples' long-term relationships, as we face a crisis of loneliness. Working with his long-term partner they collaborated to perform tableaux of moments from one possible such couple's experience.
Reeve Hart, ‘92,000,000,000 ’
92,000,000,000 is a series of photographs created by Reeve Hart from 2022-2024, consisting of livestock animal portraits, documentary images depicting slaughterhouses and constructed photographs of sentient beings dressed in raw meat. The work aims to inspire empathy for the 92.2 billion land animals annually killed for meat. By juxtaposing meat with the animals it derives from, the project addresses our disconnected relationship between the food we eat and its origin.
Mansi Umbhoray, ‘Death Over Indignity’
For centuries, a section of the Indian society was being ostracised purely based on the families they were born into- based on their caste. Death Over Indignity confronts Indian Caste Discrimination, an archaic apartheid system that is culturally in practice even in the 21st Century. The oppressed communities especially the Dalits face fatal atrocities for menial actions- sporting a moustache, owning or riding a customary wedding horse, using a public water tap. With the project, Umbhoray intends to inform a global audience of the nuances of caste discrimination.
