UPCYCLE From Packaging to Art
19th February, 2025– 1st March, 2025
Great Pulteney Street Gallery
36 Great Pulteney Street
London, W1F 9NS
Gavin Turk | Leo Fitzmaurice | Marisa Culatto | Russell Herron | Sam Hodge | Sarah Pettitt | Shane Bradford | Susan Collis
Upcycle is a new exhibition which 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?
In ‘Upcycle’ eight artists look at packaging, demonstrating how something so mundane can become elevated – artistically upcycled, if you like. Cue implications for recycling, consumerism, sustainability and other existential matters, as well as plenty of wit.
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How does such a quotidian source relate to artistic epiphany? Gavin Turk presents cartons à la Morandi and used lighters à la Hirst; Leo Fitzmaurice maxes out the crushed Coca Cola can and proposes that we see supermarket bags as paintings; Sarah Pettitt’s tenderly provisional constructions have an unassertive presence consistent with much of her material coming from left-overs; and Shane Bradford employs the surprisingly elaborate components of crates used for home deliveries to print paintings titled with the faintly absurd claims of supermarket taglines.
Another question to ask is: are we seeing packing repurposed, or something else pretending to be packaging? Thus, Marisa Culatto turns paper tape from packing aid to art material, while Susan Collis’s work seems to be what it should have been wrapped in; and Sam Hodge prints directly from unfolded cardboard boxes to arrive at surprising suggestions, whereas Russell Herron makes cardboard portraits which, in a double-take contrast, involve no cardboard.
UPCYCLE From Packaging to Art opens on the 19th of February, 2025 until the 1st of March, 2025 at Great Pulteney Street Gallery
©2025 Great Pulteney Street Gallery
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