Sweet Potion

Maria Andrievskaya Rebecca Foster-Clarke Ella Garvey Monika Marchewka Mia Wilkinson

Maria Andrievskaya (b. 1993) is an artist living and working in London. Within large-scale monochromatic paintings, magical realism is used to explore her coexisting feelings of hope, grief and empathy for the current and future state of our planet, environment and people. Insect-sized female characters inhabit these alarming ecosystems that are overrun by nature; they feel familiar yet strange, lit by an eerie, dawn-like glow on the brink of change and healing. Undisturbed, we witness these women performing compassionate rituals or curiously foraging for resources, living harmoniously with a dwindling environment. Maria invites us to question our own scale and impact by entering these foreboding worlds, as a call for introspection and action to take place.

Rebecca Foster-Clarke (b. 1999) is a contemporary figurative artist based in Norwich, UK. She explores the disconcerting nature of being a young woman, weaving a tragicomic narrative where tongue-in-cheek humour meets an eerie uncanniness. Her work is characterised by vibrant colours and near-feverish realism, evoking a palpable tension reminiscent of the opening scenes in horror films.

Ella Garvey (b. 1999, originally from the Isle of Man) is a painter based in London. Her practice centers around the mythologizing of space and objects, using oil paint as a tool to play with form. There is a deep reverence for the act of constructing an image as she adopts techniques from the Renaissance period, working meticulously with multiple layers and glazes. Ella aims to explore personal narratives through the collecting of folktales, imagery and objects that hold sentimental value. On the canvas she weaves these findings to create a visual language of recognisable forms and universal truths that relate yet contradict. Stumbling upon one object and its stories leads her down the path of many more, often finding herself in a territory that she hadn’t envisioned. It is a way of rearranging to pose new questions, to create poetry from the ordinary. The works allude to surrealism and symbolism yet they remain undefined, an eerie unspoken beauty inhabiting each world she imagines.

Monika Marchewka (b. 1988) is a Polish artist living and working in Gdynia, Poland. In 2013 she obtained her degree in painting at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. After graduation, Monika started working as an animator in the world's first fully painted film 'Loving Vincent' and later 'The Peasants' (BreakThru films production company). Since leaving BreakThru films, she has been painting full-time and exhibiting internationally. Monika’s main object in her storytelling technique, naturally reflected in her paintings, is for the viewer to decide which way the story will unfold. The artist brilliantly creates a balance between the ‘dark’ side and ‘bright’ side. Rendering clouds, fog, water and pearls as her signature elements, Monika’s paintings set the premises for her female characters. They inhabit the illusionary setting as a part of their journey towards something or as a memory. That something can be something tangible, superior or spiritual. Monika’s latest storytelling series are about fulfilled and unfulfilled promises. "You can miss something you never had, but even unfulfilled promises teach us some lessons. Always carry what you have experienced in life with you; treat every memory as a talisman."

Mia Wilkinson is a London based artist, whose oil paintings are visceral explorations of certain sexualized female forms. The sensual indulgence with which she approaches the paint is reflective of her subject; female body builders and squashers wrestle on the canvas in an orgy of drips and loaded excess paint. The humorous and light hearted intention with which she approaches her work is not lost, as complex issues of sex and gender are confronted by her brush.