IONE & MANN, 1st Floor, 6 Conduit Street, London W1S 2XE
www.ioneandmann.com Instagram: @ioneandmann
The first part of IONE & MANN (say ‘Eye-Oh-Knee’ if you like) sounds close to ‘Ionian’, and that’s in line with being run by the Greek-born Alkistis Koukouliou. Logically enough, she’s seen championing Zeus above. The gallery dates back to 2015, operating initially on a nomadic basis, before putting down roots on Eccleston Street in Belgravia in 2019. The pandemic called for a change in course, and the gallery resumed a programme of regular exhibitions at the South Kensington art hub Cromwell Place. I recall solos by Barbara Alegre and Alice Kemp and several well-judged group shows. It’s only over the past twelve months that IONE & MANN has enjoyed a permanent space in the heart of Mayfair. The programme has remained as before: thoughtful, controlled, often chromatically muted work rather than showy expressionist blazes of colour; and mostly from mid-career artists rather than new kids on the block.
My highlights from that first central year have been Shannon Bono’s scientifically and symbolically informed paintings intended to ‘centralise black womanhood as a source of knowledge and understanding’; what I termed the ‘metaphysical minimalism’ of Amelia Bowles; and Jana Emburey’s meditative micro/macrocosms exploring ideas of interconnectivity. Now that I think back, there is a preponderance of female artists, and the current show by Yelena Popova isn’t one of the exceptions. An impressive tapestry expands the context for her ‘Post-Petrochemical’ paintings in ‘Of Dust and Breath’. Rejecting any art materials made with products of the petrochemical industry, Popova’s pigments are soil and clay she collected near the mouth of the River Nith in Scotland. That’s rich in iron oxide formed 250m years ago, so grounding the work in deep time.
