New gallery C.G. Williams announces the opening of its permanent space in Bloomsbury with its inaugural exhibition Salt Marsh Hay, a solo presentation of works by London-based American painter Beau Gabriel, accompanied by a text by Franco-American writer Sophie de B.
Located at 40 Great Russell Street, just steps away from the British Museum, the gallery provides an intimate setting for its artists – by acclaimed architect William Smalley RIBA.
C.G Williams presents a new body of work from Beau Gabriel, whose complex and sensuous paintings explore the evolving nature of figurative representation. Salt Marsh Hay tells a tragedy in five acts and a prologue, in which classic narrative forms are employed to tell an original story written by the painter himself: an epic allegory that revives his childhood memories, celebrates his connection to his home, and tries to make sense of his struggle with depression. Set on the rocky coasts of Maine, it follows two sisters whose story intertwine with symbolic elements of promise, loss, and seasonal transformation.
Gabriel’s paintings are voracious in their details and allusions, portraying his tale with a formal sophistication and literary depth that heighten tensions and emotions. The paintings refer to baroque musical forms (a Ritornello sets the scene as the curtain rises, a Volta ends the tragedy with a bittersweet dance), New England sea shanties, and poems by Louise Glück. Compositions allude to illustrations by the American N.C. Wyeth and frescoes by the Florentine Domenico Ghirlandaio. A slouchy sweatshirt simultaneously evokes a Pontormo altarpiece and a Gap catalogue. The tragedy’s characters are cast from among the painter’s family, friends, and lovers: they are clothed and posed in ways that both raise them to the clouds of allegory and ground them in the soil of intimacy.
These rich and complex elements combine to express a fundamentally human experience: the loss of something that cannot be retrieved. Beau Gabriel paints with a strong emphasis on human presence, engaging with traditional technique in an innovative and dynamic way. His compositions are meticulously considered, with bold experimentation in form, light, and perspective that challenges and captivates the viewer. The result is a body of work that is both strikingly beautiful and playfully provocative.
The commissioned text Mount Desert Triptych by Sophie de B. serves as a literary counterpart to Williams’ visual exploration, reinforcing the exhibition’s interest in history, memory, and storytelling. By blending personal recollection with mythology, both the text and the paintings blur the boundaries between past and present, reality and fiction, personal history and collective myth.
Beau Gabriel, Salt Marsh Hay, 21st March 2025 – 25th April 2025 C.G. Williams
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