Upcycling Art Exhibition reveals what happens when eight artists take ordinary packaging and elevate it. Using plenty of wit and a dash of deception, the artists demonstrate how something utterly mundane can be completely transformed through upcycling.
With implications for recycling, consumerism, sustainability and other existential matters, this playful show is hosted by Soho Housing Association’s Great Pulteney Street Gallery and curated by Paul Carey-Kent. It will include Morandi-style cartons and jars, crushed Coca Cola cans, and work that seems to be what it should have been wrapped in. And several works ask the question, are we seeing packaging repurposed, or something else pretending to be packaging?
Russell Herron, Girl With Green Eyes, 2024 Colour pencil on paper, 36 x 29.7cm
Featured artists: Gavin Turk, Leo Fitzmaurice, Marisa Culatto, Russell Herron, Sam Hodge, Sarah Pettitt, Shane Bradford & Susan Collis.
curated by Paul Carey-Kent
UPCYCLE: from packaging to art, 19th Feb – 1st March 2025 Great Pulteney Street Gallery
(gallery hours Mon-Sat 12-6pm)
About
Launched in summer 2024, Great Pulteney Street Gallery (GPS Gallery) is owned by Soho Housing Association who believe it is important for hospitality and creative workers to live near their place of work, to maintain the character of Soho and its origins as a living, working village. Like many buildings in Soho, 36 Great Pulteney Street was formerly home to a diverse range of makers, who typically both lived and worked in their premises.
It remains a mixed-use building, with four affordable homes above the ground and lower ground exhibition spaces which make up the gallery.
For the past 50 years, Soho Housing Association’s mission has been to ensure that people can continue to live in central London, providing social, affordable and market rented housing. The association also owns 40 commercial properties, the rent from which is reinvested towards its social purpose. Soho Housing Association is registered with the Regulator of Social Housing as a registered provider, no. LH1321. sohoha.org.uk
