Brooke Benington, 76 Cleveland Street, London W1T 6NB
www.brookebenington.com Instagram: @brookebenington
A decade ago Lily Brooke Day and George Mingozzi-Marsh established their own galleries: her ‘Lily Brooke’ in her South London home, his ‘William Benington’ in London and, as ‘Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer’, in Buckinghamshire. Both had interesting programmes. In 2020, they joined forces to form Brooke Benington (don’t be tempted to add a 4th ‘n’). Given that coincided with the global epidemic, initial activity was mainly online and at the sculpture park, which continued to 2023. In October 2022, the current space opened in the north of Fitzrovia, where you are now as likely to meet Gallery Manager Tommaso Gonzo as the founders. Looking back across the programme highlights, intelligently-curated group shows stand out: ‘A Mirror to Vanity’ last year, with work expressing an awareness of impermanence; ‘The Picture’ in 2023, inviting artists to respond to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray; and the seven editions of Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer. The current show, guest-curated by Polly Morgan, maintains the standard: ‘Best Self’ brings together work that makes sense in the context of Erving Goffman’s advice ‘Choose your self-presentations carefully, for what starts out as a mask may become your face’ (from his 1956 book ‘The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life’). Those shows range well beyond the seven artists represented by the gallery, and so do the solos: my recent favourites have been by Alexi Marshall, Andrew Sabin and Guy Oliver as well as the represented Victor Lim Seward, Katie Tomlinson and Maria Szakats. What do they have in common? Typically, strong ideas expressed through an evident materiality – not just in the sculpture, but in Marshall’s layered ‘lino paintings’; Tomlinson’s combination of oil paint with other materials such as silver, pastel or lipstick; and Szakats’ blurred images made with mohair embroidered on cotton toile.
London’s gallery scene is varied, from small artist-run spaces to major institutions and everything in between. Each week, art writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent gives a personal view of a space worth visiting.
