David Remfry and Group Exhibition

David Remfry

Where the Light Falls

A solo exhibition by David Remfry curated by Jo Baring

Drawn Together

A group exhibition curated by David Remfry

David Remfry

Born in Worthing in 1942, David Remfry studied at Hull College of Art (1959–64) before establishing himself as a full-time artist in London. Renowned for his large-scale watercolours of dancers and urban life, he captures the energy of nightlife—from Hull’s Locarno dancehall in his student years to New York City clubs during his long residency at the Hotel Chelsea from 1995 to 2016. Where the Light Falls brings together key strands of Remfry’s work, including his watercolours of dancers alongside more recent oil paintings.

Remfry was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2006 where he served as Professor of Drawing at the RA Schools from 2016–18, and in 2023, he coordinated the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

This exhibition coincides with the release of a Monograph, David Remfry, published by Lund Humphries with essays by Chloe Aridjis, Hettie Judah, Rosalind McKever, Gerardine Mulcahy-Parker and Kathleen Soriano.

The exhibition has been curated by art historian and writer, Jo Baring.

Where the Light Falls

A solo exhibition by David Remfry curated by Jo Baring

In Where the Light Falls, David Remfry draws us into a world that sits between movement and stillness, connection and solitude. Known for his expressive watercolours and fluid lines, Remfry captures not only the joy and energy of bodies in motion, but also the quieter, inbetween moments that shape how we experience each other and the spaces we inhabit.

Light is a constant presence throughout the exhibition. It falls in angled shafts, catching the edge of a hem or brushing across a figure’s skin. And in his more recent oil paintings, Remfry’s interest in light becomes more layered, revealing moments of pause and reflection, the brief openings where we become aware of our surroundings and our place within them. Fabric plays a central role in the paintings and watercolours on display. As it creases and gathers, flows and folds, it is not just clothing, but something that moves with the body, almost like a second skin. Whether painting dancers or quiet interiors, Remfry gives equal attention to gesture and atmosphere, capturing how light and space shape emotion.

Jo Baring Curator

Jo Baring is an art historian and writer. She is the Director of the Ingram Collection of Modern British & Contemporary art. A former Director of Christie’s UK, Jo has published widely and is a regular speaker at institutions, art fairs and galleries. Jo is the co-writer and co-presenter of the podcast Sculpting Lives. In 2023 she was elected as the Frankland Visitor to Brasenose College, Oxford.

£26,400

The Ineluctable Modality of the Visible

From Another Place 2021

Watercolour

152 x 102 cm

Kit Kat Club 1999

£6,300 inc VAT

Drawn Together

A group exhibition curated by David Remfry

David Remfry has invited six artists to present their work by curating a group exhibition Drawn Together. The exhibition presents artists with a distinct visual voice and a shared sensitivity to human connection gesture, and form.

Set against the backdrop of London and New York, two cities of constant movement and reinvention where David has lived—the exhibition explores the relationships that shape creative practice: between artist and subject, between peers, and between individuals navigating modern life.

From fashion-inflected photography to abstraction and portraiture, the show forms a dialogue across mediums and experiences. More than a curatorial act, Remfry offers a gathering—a moment of communion among artists whose work, though diverse, is bound by the invisible threads of influence, admiration, and shared inquiry.

Artists

Abe Odedina

Born 1960 in Ibadan, Nigeria, Abe Odedina describes himself as a folk artist – yet, implicitly and explicitly, Odedina’s practice questions the validity of ‘folk art’ as a discrete category. Odedina’s work offers objects which embrace their objecthood: a gesture both radical and very simple indeed.

“I am not persuaded by the concerns of the formal art project. I can be interested in it and amused by it, but I don’t value it over and above all else” says the artist

Painting on board rather than canvas, Odedina’s compositions embody all the solidity — and practicality — of shop fronts or municipal murals. Compositional elements of Renaissance portraiture, devotional painting and even pop art frame figures from diverse mythologies (Yoruba, Haitian, Ancient Greek) as well as passers-by or characters plucked from the artist’s own imagination.

“If, like me, you don’t have the discipline or the interest in holding these clear categories,’ says Odedina, ‘then maybe it’s better to enjoy that morphing from hard facts to poetry, from something to nothing.”

Portrait of the artist as a figment of his imagination 2023

I never forget a face 2024

Guilty pleasures 2023

Message in a bottle 2024

Alexandra Blum

Alexandra Blum’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of the Home (permanent collection acquisition), Hackney Museum, and London Transport Museum, amongst many other venues. Solo shows include ‘Wayfaring’, Fitzrovia Gallery, London, 2023 (catalogue essay by Dr Rachel Sloan, Associate Curator for Works on Paper, The Courtauld Gallery). In 2024 her work was selected for ‘Silent Disco 24’ curated by Graham Crowley. Awards include the Hugh Casson Drawing Prize 2019, the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust Award 2012 and the David Gluck Memorial Bursary for Drawing 2008 (first prize).

She was artist-in-residence at Dalston Square construction site (2008-10) and awarded a post-graduate MEXT research scholarship in painting at Kyoto City University of Arts, Japan (1996-98).

Alexandra draws to see more, to discover and record the interactions between part and whole, and between herself and the wider world. Her drawings scrutinise the everyday urban spaces she encounters, examining the boundaries between interior and exterior, personal and public space and between human and more-than-human worlds.

£2,400 inc VAT

Aftermath 2023

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Factory 2023

Tower 2023

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Bridget Moore

Born in Whitstable, Kent. Bridget Moore studied art at Medway College of Design, Epsom School of Art & Design and the Royal Academy Schools, graduating in 1984 when she was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award. For inspiration Bridget draws on childhood memories, exploring themes of decayed opulence and her fascination with the rich colours and lights of theatres, circuses and fairgrounds. Bridget shows regularly in the London galleries and is a Member of the Royal Watercolour Society.

Wash Day 2024

Güler Ates

Turkish-born artist Güler Ates works across video, photography, printmaking, and site-responsive performance, creating atmospheric and theatrical images that merge Eastern and Western sensibilities. Central to her practice is the motif of veiled figures, draped in richly colored fabrics, moving through opulent interiors often tied to colonial histories and notions of ‘the East’ by drawing on European traditions of depicting veiled women, particularly in works by masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt, Ates uses her imagery to explore cultural displacement while also addressing wider social and political questions surrounding gender, power, and the symbolism of the veil.

Since moving to London in 1998, Ates has studied at Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal College of Art, where she earned her MA in Fine Art in 2008. Her work has been exhibited widely across the UK and internationally, with solo exhibitions in Washington DC, Mumbai, Turin, Amsterdam, and London, most recently in Transcendent with Marcelle Joseph Projects (2023). She has received numerous awards, including the Arts Council England Project Award (2020), and her work is held in major collections such as the Royal Collection, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Government Art Collection. Alongside her practice, she has been a digital print tutor at the Royal Academy Schools since 2011 and continues to live and work in southeast England.

Memories of Carving I 2017

Digital Pigment Print

Edition of 5 / 50 x 41.8 cm

Framed: £2,000 Unframed: £1,740 inc VAT

Digital Pigment Print

Edition of 7 / 22 x 32 cm

Framed: £1,700 Unframed: £1,440 inc VAT

Pigment Print Edition of 5 / 29.2 x 30 cm

Framed: £1,800 Unframed: £1,560 inc VAT

Etching

Edition of 4 / 30 x 29.5 cm

Framed: £1,600 Unframed: £1,200 inc VAT

Digital Pigment Print Edition of 5 / 100 x 66.6 cm

Framed: £4,200 Unframed: £3,600 inc VAT

Katherine Jones

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.

Everybody Saw The Sunshine 2025

The City At A Distance 2024

In Our Contentment 2025

Collagraph and Block-Print on 300gsm Somerset Paper Edition of 25 / 39 x 46.5 x 3cm

£750 inc VAT

£750 inc VAT

Softened by Warming 2025

Collagraph and Hand Colouring on 300gsm Somerset Paper Edition of 25 / 39 x 47 x 3cm

£990 inc VAT

Rita Barros

Rita Barros was born in Lisbon and lives in New York since 1980. She has an MA in Art in Media:Studio Art from New York University where she teaches photography. She is the author of the book “Fifteen Years:Chelsea Hotel”, Camara Municipal de Lisboa, 1999. In 2023 her work was the subject of a retrospective edition published by the prestigious Ph collection on the history of Portuguese Contemporary Photographers published by Imprensa Nacional in Portugal.

Her first exhibition was in 1987 at PS1 Contemporary Arts Center in New York. Since then her work has been shown regularly in different institutions such as: Encontros de Fotografia de Coimbra in Coimbra; Centro Portugues de Fotografia/Cadeia da Relacao in Porto; Museu da Agua in Lisbon; Museu de Serralves in Porto; Wilfredo Lam Contemporary Art Museum in Havana, Cuba ; Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Sao Paulo, Brazil; Baltimore Contemporary Art Museum in Baltimore; International Center of Photography in New York; Center for Photography of Woodstock in New York; Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin; Royal Academy of Arts in London; Fundacao Gulbenkian in Paris and in Lisbon; Centre Photographique de L’Ile de France in Paris; Museu de Arte Contemporanea in Madrid, and many others.

Her archive of portraits of writers, musicians and artists (represented by Getty Images) is published regularly in the international press.

Flowers #1 from the series ‘Flowers’ 2023

£4,200 inc VAT

£1,800 inc VAT

Crocs (stuffed animals) 2024

Archival Inkjet Print, Framed and Glazed Edition of 6 / 24.5 x 31cm

£1,800 inc VAT

Archival Inkjet Print, Framed and Glazed Edition of 6 / 24.5 x 31cm

£1,800 inc VAT

Platform & Buckle Shoes 2024

Archival Inkjet Print, Framed and Glazed Edition of 6 / 24.5 x 31cm

£1,800 inc VAT

Shoe from the series ‘Presence of Absence’ 2005-06

Archival Inkjet Print, Framed and Glazed Edition of 6 / 36 x 51cm

£4,200 inc VAT

Cowboy Boots 2024

£1,800 inc VAT

Many thanks to our sponsors:

Paul Smith Space, found downstairs at 9 Albemarle Street, is a dedicated gallery presenting artwork which resonates with the company’s ethos of creativity, individuality, and curiosity. A full programme of exhibitions will see Paul Smith Space change periodically throughout the year, each time introducing an exciting new array of work.

For all art enquiries please contact:

art@paulsmith.co.uk

Katie Heller

Art & Exhibitions Manager

Paul Smith

9 Albemarle Street

London W1S 4BL

+44 (0)7553 352 959

+44 (0) 207 493 4565 katie.heller@paulsmith.co.uk

Brontë Crouch

Arts and Interiors Consultant

Paul Smith

9 Albemarle Street

London W1S 4BL

+44 (0) 207 493 4565 bronte.crouch@paulsmith.co.uk