Cultivate presents Explore – A group show at Free The Gallery, Crystal Palace, SE London, April 2026 – And so Explore happened, fourteen artists and another Cultivate exhibition, this time in a rather marvellous space called Free The Gallery over in Crystal Palace. From my point of view as both participating artist and curator it was quite a frantic long weekend, well a bit more than just a long weekend, these things don’t just happen, there’s lots that needs to happen before we even get to the space and start of the install and the hanging of it all. There’s all the selecting and inviting of the artists, all the this, the that and the other and it never quite works when you are both a both participating artist and the one pulling all the strings and putting the screws into the rather delicate wall (and thinking that maybe the next one will be the once that causes the whole building to finally come crashing down). Just off the Crystal Palace Triangle or inside the Triangle or something to do with a triangle up a steep hill and then down a hill in some sort of old stables or old industrial space or something, a building these days mostly held together with scaffolding, that and old bits of polystyrene dinosaurs, a gloriously old DIY space that kind of reminds those of us who were there, how good Hackney Wick once was when no one took any notice of the place and left us to it. 

A short sharp three day group exhibition called Explore then and no you can’t really have a serious review from me, I’m far too involved in every aspect of this one. A short sharp three day exhibition; hang it all on the Friday, open on Friday night, none of that private view nonsense, everyone welcome, no lists, no collecting names and marketing at them later, no making everyone jump through hoops. Hang it all on Friday, open the show on Friday evening, sit back and enjoy it all over the Saturday and Sunday and then clear it all out again and lock the door behind us once all the art is taken down and away again on Sunday evening. 

Now of course we like the work of all the artists, they wouldn’t have been invited if that wasn’t the case, we are very (very) picky about these things and the whole body of art has to work as one whole thing in the space; groups show really need to work as one whole thing or they just don’t work and this space is far from a formal white cube, this is not a place for a neat and tidy regimented hang, this is not a place where you do things ‘properly’ and yes, the conversations between the pieces are going to be loud. I didn’t get it right, I probably should have locked the artists out and not been so accommodating, these things can’t be democratic, there can’t be other opinions flying at you, too many cooks and I had to live with the results all weekend. I did have it almost right at one point mid afternoon during the hang until other opinions were offered and last minute demands kind of made. I didn’t like the hang, I wasn’t happy with my own art and I wasn’t happy with where my art was, I wasn’t happy with where quite a few pieces were, I was tempted to rehang the whole thing after the opening night, I probably would have done if it had been practical to do so, if the show has been on for more than just the weekend then I probably would have done.     

Now of course I like the work of all the artists, they wouldn’t have been invited if that wasn’t the case, we are very (very) picky about these things, and hang apart (and the dissatisfaction in terms of my own art), I was really pleased with most of what was on the walls and the floors. A lot of consideration goes into gathering art and artists who we think will work together, who’s art will work in the right way with the other pieces. It might not be obvious to invite a painter like Jeremy Scott to be in the same show as those Mia Jane Harris figures or Suzie Pindar’s cut up words but we do put these things together in our heads first, there is lots of (sometimes heated) debate before hand, these things are not accidental and hopefully the conversations the pieces have with each other brings out something.   

There are quite a few Suzie Pindar pieces I really like, she does often figure somewhere in our shows, I like the part she plays in them, I like her work, I do like her word-covered shoes, her bedhead, her door, there are some things I maybe don’t like so much, this work on these walls in here (or hanging on the fence in here) is amongst her strongest and possibly her most confident? You feel she’s evolving as an artist and that Suitcase Gallery of hers, that suitcase full of art that travels with her that is resting on a bench in here for this show kind of hints of things to come. The art of The Naked Artist, as she likes to be known, is evolving in interesting ways as Suzie Pindar finds herself as an artist (and maybe as a person).  I’m never quite sure what Francesca Alaimo‘s art is about, I kind of like that I’m never sure, that it isn’t ever as obvious as it might appear to be at first, I do like this big piece, a new one, a do like how Francesca arrives at a show and unrolls the latest piece, those latest layers of life, the latest slice of painterly mixed media and leaves it hanging there to be considered and thought about through the length of a show and beyond.   

Really wanted some Julia Maddison in this one, she has been showing with Cultivate for ten years or more now, this space particularly lends itself to what she does and who she is (not that we’ve worked out who she is yet, not by any means). meanwhile those Jeremy Scott paintings are dark, weighty, they hang heavy of the old whitewashed brick walls of this space, some kind of gravitas, next to the deliciously red masks of Poppybelle Scicluna and the lines and angles of Mary T. Spence and her refreshing colour. The first time Jeremy has exhibited physically with us after showing in a couple of out online shows. Those two smaller Mary T. Spence paintings are as big as anything in this show, i do like her lines, I do like the choices she makes in terms of her colour. 

Over in the corner and demanding you spend a quiet moment with them there’s more of Sofia Martins Gray‘s very personal painting with her Polaroid camera, another Cultivate regular and another mystery. Unlike the band she fronts, Starsha Lee, Sofia’s paintings – I guess we really should, for the sake of clarity, call them photographs – unlike her band Starsha Lee, Sofia’s paintings are to quietly contemplate, to stand in the corner with peacefully and quietly explore (and try to read) without distraction. She really does paint with her cameras and her film stock and what she does with those photographs, the was she assembles her pieces. 

Andree Adley’s stylised paintings are once again watching us from the walls, we’re looking at her eyes, they’re looking at us, her eyes are (all?) about the way we allow ourselves to be watched without question, her smaller paintings are up there looking down on us, it isn’t the only thing she does or paints or says but it is a rather important part of her work and I do rather like the way Andree Adley paints those almost octopus-like glam rock tentacled eyes. I also like the way Andree is a pro-active painter/maker of things and also a rather prolific DIY curator, that she does what she does in a positive artist-friendly artist-led way, I like the manner of her Secret Salons and such, I might not like everything she exhibits in her own group shows from other artists, she is one of our artistic alleys though, we need more people at least trying to make things happen in these fractured art-scene mostly cynically artist-exploiting times. I like Andree’s eyes.                             

Fellow Cultivate founder Emma Harvey has chosen to hit us with her feminist riot-grrrl side, well not really a side, it is something that runs rather powerfully through all her work, through her dislike of the boys club, through her images that nod to Riot Grrrl band like Bikini Kill or Sissyfit. And there’s Joan Jett once again, Emma’s hand made prints and that positive pop art repeating of things; that block of six prints as one piece really works in here, if only the hang had been a little better at this show, Emma Harvey’s work deserved more space. 

Liz Griffiths does really interesting things with (found?) media, old photographs, layers of very painterly paint (or is it ink?), always deliciously coloured, radiant, delicate, considered, quiet where Marie Brenneis and her multi media paintings are rather loud. Marie, who recently took part in our Mixtape No.10 online show, is making her debut with us in terms of physical shows, her work feels a little restrained in here, she needs to be even louder that this space allows, she needs big spaces where she can be even louder (and larger than life) than she is allowed to be in here. Marie’s pieces are part paintings, part prints, abstract multi-media pieces, bold bright colours, kind of like the artist herself – her art really is an extension of Marie herself…   

There’s a couple of shelves with two new Mia Jane Harris pieces, more of her manipulation of those found china figures that only she can find and that are always rather intriguing; that (slightly) gothy slant that come with a hint of a fetish flavoured undertone that her work always comes with. And what can we say about those big bags of Vinay Hathi‘s? Those big pop art pieces. They have figured in Cultivate shows before, I think we first showed one of his giant bags in a show something like ten years ago (that big office building just off Hackney Road we took over for a weekend in 2015). Those two bags were always going to loudly fit in with this group show in this particular space with this cross section of art and artists. In our heads this was always going to be a busy show, there was always going to be a lot of noise on the walls, lots of demands for attention and the thing about putting an exhibition like this together is you kind of have to know who is going to come in, to know what’s going to engage with the audience over the weekend. We have done shows in this space before, every time you do something in a space you learn about it, you learn about the people, the audience who come, we do not want to put on shows and that are just about the art crowd and the gang of artists who turn up at each other’s shows on the opening night – that is not what Cultivate is about, that is what we see so often at London shows these days, shows that all about the open night and a gang of London art students (or recent art students) happily showing their art to each other and seemingly not wanting to reach beyond their cosy bubble. Surely art needs to engage a little more than that? Vinay Hathi‘s bags certainly engage with people, he does like to encourage people to pick them up, to take photos with them, walk around them, we wanted that to happen in this show, we wanted people to relax and talk to us on the Saturday and Sunday, those bad were the bridge, well they were more than just the bridge but they were a positive ice breaker. The bags or pieces, the two big ones don’t function as bags (the two small ones do) are made out of found recycled material, they play with the notions of waste, of high end fashion bags and Prada and a world of waste and they are proper pieces of Pop Art, they are certainly talking points and I do rather like how once the ice was broken, conversations flowed in terms of the other art in the room all weekend, I enjoyed sitting in the space and engaging with people (or leaving them to engage with the art, personally I hate been talked to at an art exhibition, if I need to ask then I will but please don’t start talking to me, let the art do that itself.)     

Yes, there was a painting or two of mine in the exhibition, I wasn’t particularly happy with any of them (okay, I was maybe semi-pleased with the Not To Be Moved pieces), someone else can write about my art, it isn’t really my place to do so. You could argue just as much that it isn’t really my place to write a review (if indeed this is what this is?) of a show I’ve co-curated and you’re probably right, but then I don’t see anyone else writing about most of these artists or these shows that seemingly don’t quite fit in with (or register on the horizon of the rather blinkered) London art media’s view of things. This is the 204th Cultivate show, I long since gave up inviting the London art media to anything. 

So that was Explore, that was our latest Crystal Palace adventure, the ongoing still evolving Cultivate adventure. We like putting shows on in this space, I like the state of the building, I love the building and the mess, I like the people who come to the space, and it does get busy during the daytime. I like the market outside, I quite like the not too long train ride from East London although I probably have ridden the line enough now, maybe we’ll think about doing it again towards the end of Summer? No, not everything worked with Explore, I really wasn’t happy with the hang and it did need one more thing. I do like the way the light comes into the space in the daytime, i like the way it picks up Julia Maddison’s work, she (or we) really needed to have her work hanging where it was again to the daytime light caught it, it wasn’t accidental, it was part of the plan, we do mostly plan these things. I make it that we’ve shown the work of around three thousand of our fellow artists now, I rather think that speaks for itself and yes this is us blowing out own trumpets yet again but hey, if we don’t who will? It wasn’t perfect, of course it wasn’t, it never is, we did explore. A few days on now and I think I liked it, I think it was good enough, I think we’ll do it again, yeah, we should do it again, we need to really don’t we? (sw)   

Here’s another #43SecondFilm…

Links: ANDREE ADLEY / EMMA HARVEY / FRANCESCA ALAIMO / JEREMY SCOTT / JULIA MADDISON / LIZ GRIFFITHS / MARIE BRENNEIS / MIA JANE HARRIS / MARY T. SPENCE / POPPYBELLE SCICLUNA / SEAN WORRALL / SOFIA MARTINS GRAY / SUZIE PINDAR / VINAY HATHI / CULTIVATE / MIXTAPE No.10

As always please do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show…