SPACE

Louise Beer is an artist and curator, born in Aotearoa New Zealand, now working in Margate England. Louise uses installation, moving image, photography, writing, participatory works and sound to explore humanity's evolving understanding of Earth’s environments and the cosmos. Her piece for SPACE, Force of Mortality (2013) originally commissioned by The British Library, will draw you into the the space, which we are lining with deep blue velvet. Louise is currently Artist in Residence at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge (2025–2026), UCD Parity Studios x Mayo Dark Sky Park (2025–2026), and Art Gene's 25×25 programme. In her curatorial practice, Louise is co-curator of the Center for Space Environmentalism, co-director of super/collider, and co-founder of Lumen and Pale Blue Dot Collective. She has co-created eight residencies and co-curated over 100 exhibitions and 100 events concerned with astronomy, ecology and our relationship with the natural world.

On the reverse side of the dividing wall on which hangs Louise’s piece, Wenyon and Gamble’s Holographic piece Amateur Astronomy (1989/2026) will appear to pierce through towards the other side. Their work, that often traverses the realms of science, can be found in collections such as The Victoria & Albert Museum; the M.I.T. Collection, Boston; the National Portrait Gallery and the National Academies of Science, Washington DC. They have exhibited at The Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Liverpool, and Mito Art Tower, Japan. Wenyon and Gamble have been collaborating since 1983. They are UNESCO Laureates 1993, for their work with new technology: holography and digital imagery. 

Using phosphorescent pigment and oil Deborah Grice’s mesmerising In Memory of Tomorrow (2026) trio of small paintings draw you into brooding natural landscapes that are both familiar and alien. Deborah Grice is an award winning painter who draws inspiration from her rural East Yorkshire roots and piloting experience combining 19th century romantic landscape traditions with geometric forms. In her words she explains, My work explores the relationship between memory, landscape and the future, using nostalgia not as sentimentality, but as a form of refuge. I am interested in how familiar images can create a sense of belonging while carrying us towards something unknown. 

In the cupboard will be a piece called O.o.o.h! (2026) by artist duo Ben Caro and Kat Cutler-Mackenzie. Drawn from their larger project of the same name and taking inspiration from Graham Harman’s philosophical treatise on the relationship between human and non-human bodies entitled Object Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything, in their words - Kat and Ben’s piece, “a semi-pedagogic, semi-absurd investigation into the menstrual cycle, takes as its starting point the egg to explore the analogue relationship between bird anatomy, women’s bodies and cosmic bodies, such as the moon”.  

Michael Petry’s piece Black Hole (2024), a beautifully crafted bronze sculpture, retains a molten quality seemingly still cooling because of its earth to orange to blue patination. Although not part of his Libation Series Black Hole feels like a solidified remnant of a ritual pouring of a liquid, perhaps an offering to a deity or memory of someone. The title seems to suggest some kind of predetermination but maybe it is more a battle between free will and the inevitable. Michael Petry is also the author of many art books and is director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) London. His newly published Mirror Mirror: the reflective surface in contemporary art (UK 2024/USA 2025) is now available. 

Cedric Christie’s piece, White & Blue (2015), made from enamelled steel and phenolic resin contrasts with Michael Petry’s bronze piece in the sense that it is constructed from industrial material. Cedric, who trained originally as a welder, transforms the mundane into aesthetic objects which recall the colour experimentation and dynamism of early twentieth-century minimalism. Projects at Rocket London (2001-2003), at Art Chicago (1999) and Art Forum Berlin (2001) brought Christie international recognition.  

Japanese born sound artist and designer Yuri Suzuki will be showing his piece Acid Brexit (2018). Although there will be no sound we hope that the striking visual design of the piece will resonate with people. Yuri’s work explores the relationships between sound, people and the environments we inhabit. In Space we are all different as well as no different from one another. Acid Brexit reflects Suzuki’s perspective as an immigrant living and working in the UK, and his wider interest in the social and political potential of sound. His work has been presented internationally across galleries, museums and public spaces, combining art, design and music to investigate how sound can shape everyday experience and social interaction. 

Pippa Darbyshire is showing two of her paired back horizon paintings. Between Memories and Dreams 1 (2026) and Homage to Turner (2024). Her approach, as seen in these works, is both arresting and subtle. In her words she explains “With a reduced pallet of only Ultramarine Blue and Raw Umber, I paint mainly the sea as seen from both sides of the channel. I have a studio in La Baie de Somme in Northern France and one in Margate. From my studio high up in Arlington House, I gaze at the horizon…my happy place. The horizon means hope to me.” These horizons hold memories for Pippa, living much of her childhood abroad and at ports because her father was an officer in the Royal Marines. She explains how she would gaze out to sea at ships hoping and imagining he was aboard and coming home. Now those ships are about traversing other horizons. Last year Pippa had an extensive solo retrospective exhibition in the national museum in Saint Riquier, France.  

David Spero’s striking photographic works urge us to look and explore the space and environments that surround us. For example, with his Ball Photograph, Via Omero (2009), which is from a series he developed whilst on a Photoworks Fellowship at The British School at Rome, he deploys the use of temporary ‘sculptures’ (balls, wooden strips and magnetic tape) that creates a kind of constellation, thus encouraging a slower, prolonged way of looking and moving around the architecture within the photograph. Contrasting with his constructed interior constellation we are showing his Star Series Photograph #1  (1999). Taken with a long time exposure in the desert at Joshua Tree we see the stars streak like rain or rather, the camera’s eye sees the earth’s rotation. Both photographs hint at human presence. Spero’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at The Northern Photography Centre Finland, The National Media Museum Bradford, and The Photographers Gallery London. His work are in numerous collections, including The V&A and British Council. 

Thelma Speirs will be showing, Moons of an Unknown Planet (2026), a piece made specifically for the show using etching ink, tape and felt-tip pen on tetra-pak. Like a song Thelma’s piece unfolds and wraps around you freely sitting somewhere between a domestic and celestial space. In her work she draws on objects, images, and moments she notices and collects, exploring the space between reality and imagination. Alongside her art practice, Speirs is also co-founder and designer of the fashion label Bernstock Speirs, which she started with Paul Bernstock in 1982. 

Ceramic artist, Vivien Lee has also made a piece specifically for the show called Mooring in Moonshine/Moon Shrine (2026). Of her work Vivien says that it is “an exploration of emotional landscapes and creative intuition, where every mark, texture, and layer speaks to the complexity of the human experience” and that “each artwork evolves organically, shaped by spontaneity but always guided by a deeper purpose, much like the unpredictable course of life itself.” Perhaps drawing from Lee’s Taiwanese heritage this piece might offer an invocation for the safe harbour of boats or simply, a place to moor ones thoughts. Vivien Lee lives and works in Margate. She studied at Winchester School of Art and at Chelsea School of Art and Design. She founded and curated the artist-run space Penthouse in Margate. 

Julia Maddison who describes her work as “building a museum of domestic misery” is showing, Did the Earth move for you? (2026), a new work utilising vintage textile and thread. Usually an installation artist, and concerned largely with themes of loss, absence, sickness and conflict, Maddison collects, reworks and subverts the flotsam of forgotten lives. She has exhibited widely, domestically and internationally, and has curated several shows in unexpected, or disused spaces.

The theme of absence and desire continues with three small paintings from Marcelle Hanselaar’s series, Le Retour Futile. Titled Le Retour Futile 3 (2021), Le Retour Futile 4 (2021) and Night Eyes (2021) Marcelle describes these works as having, “like the Belgian symbolist Léon Spilliaert, an existential longing for what isn’t there anymore.” “In that way”, she explains, “they echo a sense of the coastal places like Margate.” Hanselaar, who lives and works in London was born in Holland. She adds “Although I grew up at the North Sea coast it has only been in my painting that I have a longing for that particular landscape of my childhood.” Hanselaar’s work is held in several museum collections such as: The British Museum, The Ashmolean Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum, The V&A and The Metropolitan Museum, NY. 

In ‘A year of tiny poems’ on Substack, Poppy Cockburn write’s, “It strike me that these short texts reflect the nature of my way of life” For SPACE we have selected four of Poppy’s short and fleeting poems that we feel best reflect the theme of our show and are producing them as signed limited edition risograph prints. Cockburn is a writer based in Margate. She is the author of four chapbooks. Her most recent Liquid Crystal Lovesick Demon, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2023. She’s also been published by Anthropocene, Perverse, SPAM, Rough Trade Books, Dream Boy Book Club and elsewhere. Her book, Naked Oyster, is out now with If a Leaf Falls press. 

Paul Hazelton will be showing two specially made works - Well Travelled Rocks (2026), that utilises his minute geometric crosshatching technique and, Space-Ship (2026), a three-dimensional geometric drawing on paper composed from elongating and overlaying depictions of the five platonic solids. Recent solo exhibitions include Gojenje Prahu/Dust Breeding at Ptuj Castle Slovenia ArtStays Festival PRAH/DUST (2025), and AGE: The Multidimensional Aspect of Time Margate School of Art (2026). His works are held in many collections including: Beth Rudin DeWoody’s collection at The Bunker Artspace Florida and in Thomas Olbricht’s collection at Museum Folkwang, Essen Germany.    

Alice Herrick will show a selection of pieces from her Moon Landings series, which form part of the inspiration for the title and themes of the exhibition. From the sea… moon landings… tidal treasure… found and transformed in this space where the sea licks the land and the body. These works explore ideas of location, time, taxonomy, material, alchemy and existential evidence. Gazing out to the horizon not only activates a calm and creative brain state, but since moving to Margate it has become an integral and necessary part of Alice’s life alongside the daily ritual of checking the tides for year round sea swimming. It is no wonder that the horizon line and the cycle of the moon has insisted and persisted in the formal composition of these painted sculptural works.