Place (non) Place
Much of the organisation of our towns and cities involves defined spaces to live, shop, work and play: places with a clear purpose. But alongside these are less defined spaces. Vague and elusive, purposely uninviting parts of the urban environment.
They loiter at the edge of memories.
We pass through them and instantly forget them.
A (non) place exists as a space of transition, in between nowhere and somewhere else. (Non) places can be real or virtual, biography or fiction. (Non) places can be modern, postmodern, planned or designed to slip into obscurity. (Non) places can be temporal: the gallery in between exhibitions, the industrial building converted into ‘meanwhile’ art spaces, only to be sold off, rebuilt, replaced.
Engaging with the Atrium Space at Barbican Arts Group, seven artists from POST Artist Network undertake an exploration of (non) places. Working in dialogue with each other they have produced an exhibition across disciplines and artistic media. Researching disparate aspects of the (non) place, they investigate it as a productive place for artistic practice, seeking its capacity to resonate with the conditions of contemporary life, to reveal or to speculate on things to come.
ABOUT POST ARTIST NETWORK
POST is a peer-led network for artists who respond to place and public space. POST stages site-specific projects reflecting the diverse practices of its members. Previous projects include Canalology, a series of artworks along the River Lea in Tottenham, Parables Displaced in a church for the Whitstable Biennale Satellite program, Ta·da, for an artist-run space in a laundrette Copenhagen and Away Day in Wandle Park, Colliers Wood.
Much of the organisation of our towns and cities involves defined spaces to live, shop, work and play: places with a clear purpose. But alongside these are less defined spaces. Vague and elusive, purposely uninviting parts of the urban environment.
They loiter at the edge of memories.
We pass through them and instantly forget them.
A (non) place exists as a space of transition, in between nowhere and somewhere else. (Non) places can be real or virtual, biography or fiction. (Non) places can be modern, postmodern, planned or designed to slip into obscurity. (Non) places can be temporal: the gallery in between exhibitions, the industrial building converted into ‘meanwhile’ art spaces, only to be sold off, rebuilt, replaced.
Engaging with the Atrium Space at Barbican Arts Group, seven artists from POST Artist Network undertake an exploration of (non) places. Working in dialogue with each other they have produced an exhibition across disciplines and artistic media. Researching disparate aspects of the (non) place, they investigate it as a productive place for artistic practice, seeking its capacity to resonate with the conditions of contemporary life, to reveal or to speculate on things to come.
ABOUT POST ARTIST NETWORK
POST is a peer-led network for artists who respond to place and public space. POST stages site-specific projects reflecting the diverse practices of its members. Previous projects include Canalology, a series of artworks along the River Lea in Tottenham, Parables Displaced in a church for the Whitstable Biennale Satellite program, Ta·da, for an artist-run space in a laundrette Copenhagen and Away Day in Wandle Park, Colliers Wood.
Caterina Lewis is a London-based painter and lecturer whose work probes the edge where figuration meets abstraction.
Her work explores painting’s “internal logic”—its ability to make visual sense without literal explanation—by pushing images until they just hold together, poised between intelligibility and doubt. A recurring starting point is her archive of found photographs (often sourced from out-of-print books), many depicting Jewish ceremonies and everyday rituals connected to her central-European, secular-Jewish heritage. She redraws, edits and reconstructs these images on canvas, embracing tension and possibility so the work oscillates between abstraction and figuration. Humour rubs against seriousness; the everyday slips toward the absurd. Influences range from the stark economy of Beckett to the raw graphic energy of early graffiti, producing paintings that ravel and unravel in the same breath, asking how pictures can remake memory, ritual and desire.
Her work explores painting’s “internal logic”—its ability to make visual sense without literal explanation—by pushing images until they just hold together, poised between intelligibility and doubt. A recurring starting point is her archive of found photographs (often sourced from out-of-print books), many depicting Jewish ceremonies and everyday rituals connected to her central-European, secular-Jewish heritage. She redraws, edits and reconstructs these images on canvas, embracing tension and possibility so the work oscillates between abstraction and figuration. Humour rubs against seriousness; the everyday slips toward the absurd. Influences range from the stark economy of Beckett to the raw graphic energy of early graffiti, producing paintings that ravel and unravel in the same breath, asking how pictures can remake memory, ritual and desire.
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Open 11th- 26th October 2025 Saturdays and Sundays 1-6pm and by appointment at other times.
@irons.neil
Private View Friday 10th October 6-9pm.
Atrium Space - 32a Hertford Road, London N1 5SH
Step into a world where the boundaries between memory, landscape, and
imagination blur—welcome to the latest exhibition by Neil Irons, an artist whose practice stands at the crossroads of story and place. Through an evocative blend of painting, misappropriation and installation, he invites us to reflect on human experience and its intersection with the environments we inhabit.
About the Artist
Neil Irons is celebrated for his distinctive approach to visual storytelling. With a career spanning over three decades. Irons has traversed a range of artistic languages, from bold, expressionistic canvases to delicate, immersive site-specific works. Born in Scotland and educated at the Dundee and Chelsea Art Colleges, the artist has developed a practice deeply attuned to the everyday and the extraordinary, often drawing inspiration from the overlooked corners of contemporary life. His works have been exhibited widely, both within the UK and internationally, earning him acclaim for his ability to conjure a sense of timelessness while remaining deeply rooted in contemporary experience. His oeuvre reveals a fascination with the marks left by art history—on people, architecture, and the land itself.
Exhibition Overview
This exhibition, entitled “The Grey to Black and Red Zones,” brings together a selection of Neil Irons’ most compelling recent works in a manner reminiscent of the grand staircases of stately homes. Visitors will encounter an installation of paintings and drawings that sets out to confuse and seem to whisper forgotten stories, stories that invite personal reflection. The exhibition is organised into two thematic chapters:
• The Grey to Black Zone: An exploration of how places hold memories,
featuring reworked artworks reimagined as emotive landscapes and paintings that weave together fragments of recollection.
• The Red Zone: Works inspired by the baroque and rococo —its rhythms, its fluidity, and its persistent sense of possibility. Here, Irons’ paintings and
assemblages echo and play with the voices and textures of the seventeenth century in the 21st.
Artistic Method and Materials
Irons’s practice is grounded in material exploration. He often combines traditional media—oil and acrylic paint, charcoal, pastels—with found objects and reclaimed junk. This interplay of materials generates surfaces that are rich and layered, inviting close inspection. For Irons, process is as important as outcome; each work emerges from a period of inquiry and experiment, shaped by the artist’s deep engagement with his surroundings In some pieces, interventions are obvious whilst others appear as they might have originally before he cast his eye on them. In others, forms emerge from the scene suggesting the international architectural style or derelict buildings, carrying with them echoes of former lives. The result is art that bridges the tangible world and the realm of imagination.
Themes and Influences
Throughout his career, Neil Irons has remained fascinated by the interplay of history and narrative—how stories are constructed, preserved, and sometimes lost. His works often reference local myths, historical events and the subtle shifts of cultural identity. There is a sense of archaeology in his approach: a desire to dig beneath the surface and uncover layers of meaning, whether in the brickwork of a crumbling wall or the shifting patterns of a city street. Influenced by art history and exploration of the spatial plane from Ukiyo-e to abstract landscape painting Irons’s work requires guesswork and close interpretation. His art stands as both chronicle and catalyst, encouraging viewers to reconsider the familiar and to recognize the narratives that shape places and people.
Visitor Experience
This exhibition is being held in the Barbican Arts Group Trust Atrium Space. As its name suggests this is an entrance way and staircase nested within a building of artist studios. There is no disabled access to the works further up the staircase. The artist will be present most of the time the show is open. As you move through the space, consider the stories embedded in each work—the visible and the hidden, the personal and the collective. The artist challenges us to look again at the spaces we occupy and the traces we leave behind.
In Brief
Neil Irons’s art is a testament to the enduring power of narrative and the deep connections between people and places. His works invite us to become archaeologists of our own experience, to find significance in the seemingly ordinary, and to discover beauty in the layers of time. We invite you to linger, to reflect, and perhaps to uncover a narrative of your own within the evocative worlds he has created.
@irons.neil
Private View Friday 10th October 6-9pm.
Atrium Space - 32a Hertford Road, London N1 5SH
Step into a world where the boundaries between memory, landscape, and
imagination blur—welcome to the latest exhibition by Neil Irons, an artist whose practice stands at the crossroads of story and place. Through an evocative blend of painting, misappropriation and installation, he invites us to reflect on human experience and its intersection with the environments we inhabit.
About the Artist
Neil Irons is celebrated for his distinctive approach to visual storytelling. With a career spanning over three decades. Irons has traversed a range of artistic languages, from bold, expressionistic canvases to delicate, immersive site-specific works. Born in Scotland and educated at the Dundee and Chelsea Art Colleges, the artist has developed a practice deeply attuned to the everyday and the extraordinary, often drawing inspiration from the overlooked corners of contemporary life. His works have been exhibited widely, both within the UK and internationally, earning him acclaim for his ability to conjure a sense of timelessness while remaining deeply rooted in contemporary experience. His oeuvre reveals a fascination with the marks left by art history—on people, architecture, and the land itself.
Exhibition Overview
This exhibition, entitled “The Grey to Black and Red Zones,” brings together a selection of Neil Irons’ most compelling recent works in a manner reminiscent of the grand staircases of stately homes. Visitors will encounter an installation of paintings and drawings that sets out to confuse and seem to whisper forgotten stories, stories that invite personal reflection. The exhibition is organised into two thematic chapters:
• The Grey to Black Zone: An exploration of how places hold memories,
featuring reworked artworks reimagined as emotive landscapes and paintings that weave together fragments of recollection.
• The Red Zone: Works inspired by the baroque and rococo —its rhythms, its fluidity, and its persistent sense of possibility. Here, Irons’ paintings and
assemblages echo and play with the voices and textures of the seventeenth century in the 21st.
Artistic Method and Materials
Irons’s practice is grounded in material exploration. He often combines traditional media—oil and acrylic paint, charcoal, pastels—with found objects and reclaimed junk. This interplay of materials generates surfaces that are rich and layered, inviting close inspection. For Irons, process is as important as outcome; each work emerges from a period of inquiry and experiment, shaped by the artist’s deep engagement with his surroundings In some pieces, interventions are obvious whilst others appear as they might have originally before he cast his eye on them. In others, forms emerge from the scene suggesting the international architectural style or derelict buildings, carrying with them echoes of former lives. The result is art that bridges the tangible world and the realm of imagination.
Themes and Influences
Throughout his career, Neil Irons has remained fascinated by the interplay of history and narrative—how stories are constructed, preserved, and sometimes lost. His works often reference local myths, historical events and the subtle shifts of cultural identity. There is a sense of archaeology in his approach: a desire to dig beneath the surface and uncover layers of meaning, whether in the brickwork of a crumbling wall or the shifting patterns of a city street. Influenced by art history and exploration of the spatial plane from Ukiyo-e to abstract landscape painting Irons’s work requires guesswork and close interpretation. His art stands as both chronicle and catalyst, encouraging viewers to reconsider the familiar and to recognize the narratives that shape places and people.
Visitor Experience
This exhibition is being held in the Barbican Arts Group Trust Atrium Space. As its name suggests this is an entrance way and staircase nested within a building of artist studios. There is no disabled access to the works further up the staircase. The artist will be present most of the time the show is open. As you move through the space, consider the stories embedded in each work—the visible and the hidden, the personal and the collective. The artist challenges us to look again at the spaces we occupy and the traces we leave behind.
In Brief
Neil Irons’s art is a testament to the enduring power of narrative and the deep connections between people and places. His works invite us to become archaeologists of our own experience, to find significance in the seemingly ordinary, and to discover beauty in the layers of time. We invite you to linger, to reflect, and perhaps to uncover a narrative of your own within the evocative worlds he has created.
Elena-Andreea Teleaga is a lens-based media artist whose work is rooted in photography. While exploring the space between the pragmatic function of photography and image making, Teleaga also focuses on the limitations and the failure of the medium using both own and found imagery. She has graduated from a Masters course at Slade School of Fine Art, having received the Sarabande: the Lee Alexander McQueen full scholarship, chosen by Matthew Slotover.
www.elenaandreeateleaga.com and https://www.instagram.com/elena.andreea.teleaga/
Magda Zoledz is a London based visual artist and independent researcher focusing on post-photography. Her practice explores the evolution of digital images and the role of the singular image in the post-photographic age. She employs an interdisciplinary approach - working across photography, object, text, and sound - to challenge conventional understandings of visual digital culture. She holds a PhD in Photography from the University of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland, and was a visiting PhD researcher at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.
https://magdalenazoledz.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/magdalenazoledz/
www.elenaandreeateleaga.com and https://www.instagram.com/elena.andreea.teleaga/
Magda Zoledz is a London based visual artist and independent researcher focusing on post-photography. Her practice explores the evolution of digital images and the role of the singular image in the post-photographic age. She employs an interdisciplinary approach - working across photography, object, text, and sound - to challenge conventional understandings of visual digital culture. She holds a PhD in Photography from the University of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland, and was a visiting PhD researcher at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.
https://magdalenazoledz.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/magdalenazoledz/
I am talking to Elizabeth de Monchaux about her forthcoming exhibition Gathering at the Atrium Space, 32a Hertford Road, London N1.
When Elizabeth mentions that the individual pieces in this show are called art particles, I’m reminded of the terminology used by the Russian Constructivists in the early 20th century.
They were dealing with momentous political changes and scientific discoveries, and part of their aim was to systematise the poetic. For them, if art was a branch of mathematics, it could more safely fit into the goal of general societal improvement. At the same time, artists throughout Europe were looking for similar links between art and science which would re-define art.
I ask Elizabeth about this possible influence and her answer is no. What she says about her art particles feels more light-hearted and less proscriptive.
In physics you're dealing with particles, so why not have works of art that function as particles as part of a of a bigger whole, in the sense that atomic particles are parts of a bigger whole. I don’t pretend to understand the deep complexity of physics, so these are not representations of that.
There has always been an underlying system and a feeling of geometry underlying the process in the way Elizabeth works. Each piece in this exhibition is unique and made from a template. Three cut-out pieces are soldered together to form an upright structure. We talk about three sections rather than four and Elizabeth says three is the minimum required to allow the form to stay upright.
The template shapes which are mounted on the wall are angular and have a kind of jauntiness. It’s very easy to anthropomorphize and think about these forms as loosely moving along or standing together like a group of people. Each individual piece has its own tics and movements and uniqueness. The large carboard pieces in the show allow us to experience the forms on a more human scale.
The title Gathering seems appropriate. Each piece can stand alone, but the features of each piece come alive in relation to pieces around it; there's more of a collective impact. Grouped together they have a distinct presence.
For me, the parallels today are that we increasingly gather in in groups to react to what is going on politically, or we need family-and -friends’ groups to help us feel connected. None of it is perfect. Some of it is awkward.
How does all that link up with particles of atoms? In a sense it doesn't, even though we're made of these things. Is the meaning somewhere in the vast gap between the two? In Elizabeth’s work, I’m reminded of the importance of visual research, connection, moving along, and gathering.
Jayne Reich
May 2025
When Elizabeth mentions that the individual pieces in this show are called art particles, I’m reminded of the terminology used by the Russian Constructivists in the early 20th century.
They were dealing with momentous political changes and scientific discoveries, and part of their aim was to systematise the poetic. For them, if art was a branch of mathematics, it could more safely fit into the goal of general societal improvement. At the same time, artists throughout Europe were looking for similar links between art and science which would re-define art.
I ask Elizabeth about this possible influence and her answer is no. What she says about her art particles feels more light-hearted and less proscriptive.
In physics you're dealing with particles, so why not have works of art that function as particles as part of a of a bigger whole, in the sense that atomic particles are parts of a bigger whole. I don’t pretend to understand the deep complexity of physics, so these are not representations of that.
There has always been an underlying system and a feeling of geometry underlying the process in the way Elizabeth works. Each piece in this exhibition is unique and made from a template. Three cut-out pieces are soldered together to form an upright structure. We talk about three sections rather than four and Elizabeth says three is the minimum required to allow the form to stay upright.
The template shapes which are mounted on the wall are angular and have a kind of jauntiness. It’s very easy to anthropomorphize and think about these forms as loosely moving along or standing together like a group of people. Each individual piece has its own tics and movements and uniqueness. The large carboard pieces in the show allow us to experience the forms on a more human scale.
The title Gathering seems appropriate. Each piece can stand alone, but the features of each piece come alive in relation to pieces around it; there's more of a collective impact. Grouped together they have a distinct presence.
For me, the parallels today are that we increasingly gather in in groups to react to what is going on politically, or we need family-and -friends’ groups to help us feel connected. None of it is perfect. Some of it is awkward.
How does all that link up with particles of atoms? In a sense it doesn't, even though we're made of these things. Is the meaning somewhere in the vast gap between the two? In Elizabeth’s work, I’m reminded of the importance of visual research, connection, moving along, and gathering.
Jayne Reich
May 2025
Evanescent, liquid, sensuously present: Modern Figures by Mark Bell rework classic themes like conflict, desire and nature with a distinctive political yet poetic style. The prints emerge from a process the artist has named Media 4IR in reference to the 4th Industrial Revolution, the current age marked by the fusion between the physical and digital. Bell has photographed his recent large-scale paintings on aluminium and digitally altered and developed their colours and details. The luminescence of the original aluminium works is thus transfixed into variations that have a certain musical quality when seen together in the gallery.
In Bell’s contemporary take on The Three Graces, Science and Peace are reasoning with War – a very much timely musing on today’s state of the world. Similarly timely is Gaia, where a wild large cat representing nature and a human body are grappling (or dancing?) surrounded by leaves. In other pieces, solitary androgynous figures relate to gender and primal longing. Details like skulls and a gun tell of mortality and innate human violence, yet the vibrancy of strokes and colours remind the viewer of the gaiety of existence.
Margherita Pevere, Berlin 2025
In Bell’s contemporary take on The Three Graces, Science and Peace are reasoning with War – a very much timely musing on today’s state of the world. Similarly timely is Gaia, where a wild large cat representing nature and a human body are grappling (or dancing?) surrounded by leaves. In other pieces, solitary androgynous figures relate to gender and primal longing. Details like skulls and a gun tell of mortality and innate human violence, yet the vibrancy of strokes and colours remind the viewer of the gaiety of existence.
Margherita Pevere, Berlin 2025
Paintings and work on paper by women arists asscociated with Barbican Arts Group Trust.
Lesley Dalton is a British artist who was born in Singapore. She later settled with her family in Leicester and attended Loughborough School of Art followed by De Montfort University. Following her graduation she moved to London and worked as a colourist for Marvell Comics. Later, she gained a Higher National Diploma In Ceramics at City Literary Institute, London. She has exhibited regularly in group shows since 1978. From 1982 to date she has held 5 solo exhibitions in Leicester and London.
Lesley Dalton works across a range of disciplines including painting, collage, sculpture and ceramics. Her BAGT Editions #I print is derived from a continuing series of paintings on paper. The original paintings are often made from day to day and take on a personal character, much like a visual diary. They are painted and stencilled, sometimes including collage, with deceptive dexterity.
Lesley joined BAGT in 1986. She currently has a studio at BAGT Hertford Road Studios.
Lucile Montague's earlier work looked at people and city life. In recent years she has shifted her attention to landscape. Her paintings derive from regular walks in the green areas of North London. Her subjects are a mixture of fantasy and reality set within the calming effects of nature.
Her work has featured in many exhibitions that have included the Royal Academy Summer Show and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Her work is to be found in numerous public and private collections which include Coventry Museum and Art Gallery, Coopers & Lybrand and the Bankers Trust Company.
Lucile studied at Plymouth College of Arts and Byam Shaw School of Art. She joined BAGT in 1977 and currently has a studio at BAGT Blackhorse Lane Studios.
Franki Austin’s work has been exhibited widely and is included in both private and public collections.
Franki studied painting and glass at the Central School of Art and Design in London, and gained an MPhil in fine art from the University of Plymouth for research relating to the international artists working at Dartington Hall in Devon during the 1930s. She later pursued the subject of this research, working and travelling in India.
She has worked with poets, installing participatory exhibitions in the UK using folk tales common to peoples across the world. In 2007 her work began to include references to climate change. She first learnt about trees from her Scottish grandfather.
“The trees in my paintings are those found in ancient Scottish woodland. The stories I weave around them come from all parts of the world. Trees play major roles in our constantly changing climate but I paint only those trees bound into my personal history”.
Her works on the subject of climate change have been shown in mixed exhibitions at artist-led spaces. These include:
Artworks Project Space Barbican Arts Group Trust, 2023, 2024,
The Way It Is: a solo show at the Chelsea Arts Club September 2020,
Dispositions: Bermondsey Project Space, curated by Marguerite Horner 2019
We Grow into the Forest: at The Art Pavillion, Mile End, curated by Judit Prieto, 2019
Aviary: Transition Gallery, curated by Matthew Krishanu and Niamh White, 2016
Franki joined Barbican Arts Group Trust studios in 2005. Currently, she has a studio at BAGT’s Balckhorse Lane Studios.
Lesley Dalton is a British artist who was born in Singapore. She later settled with her family in Leicester and attended Loughborough School of Art followed by De Montfort University. Following her graduation she moved to London and worked as a colourist for Marvell Comics. Later, she gained a Higher National Diploma In Ceramics at City Literary Institute, London. She has exhibited regularly in group shows since 1978. From 1982 to date she has held 5 solo exhibitions in Leicester and London.
Lesley Dalton works across a range of disciplines including painting, collage, sculpture and ceramics. Her BAGT Editions #I print is derived from a continuing series of paintings on paper. The original paintings are often made from day to day and take on a personal character, much like a visual diary. They are painted and stencilled, sometimes including collage, with deceptive dexterity.
Lesley joined BAGT in 1986. She currently has a studio at BAGT Hertford Road Studios.
Lucile Montague's earlier work looked at people and city life. In recent years she has shifted her attention to landscape. Her paintings derive from regular walks in the green areas of North London. Her subjects are a mixture of fantasy and reality set within the calming effects of nature.
Her work has featured in many exhibitions that have included the Royal Academy Summer Show and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Her work is to be found in numerous public and private collections which include Coventry Museum and Art Gallery, Coopers & Lybrand and the Bankers Trust Company.
Lucile studied at Plymouth College of Arts and Byam Shaw School of Art. She joined BAGT in 1977 and currently has a studio at BAGT Blackhorse Lane Studios.
Franki Austin’s work has been exhibited widely and is included in both private and public collections.
Franki studied painting and glass at the Central School of Art and Design in London, and gained an MPhil in fine art from the University of Plymouth for research relating to the international artists working at Dartington Hall in Devon during the 1930s. She later pursued the subject of this research, working and travelling in India.
She has worked with poets, installing participatory exhibitions in the UK using folk tales common to peoples across the world. In 2007 her work began to include references to climate change. She first learnt about trees from her Scottish grandfather.
“The trees in my paintings are those found in ancient Scottish woodland. The stories I weave around them come from all parts of the world. Trees play major roles in our constantly changing climate but I paint only those trees bound into my personal history”.
Her works on the subject of climate change have been shown in mixed exhibitions at artist-led spaces. These include:
Artworks Project Space Barbican Arts Group Trust, 2023, 2024,
The Way It Is: a solo show at the Chelsea Arts Club September 2020,
Dispositions: Bermondsey Project Space, curated by Marguerite Horner 2019
We Grow into the Forest: at The Art Pavillion, Mile End, curated by Judit Prieto, 2019
Aviary: Transition Gallery, curated by Matthew Krishanu and Niamh White, 2016
Franki joined Barbican Arts Group Trust studios in 2005. Currently, she has a studio at BAGT’s Balckhorse Lane Studios.
