The Four Elements explores how contrasting individual parts can form a harmonious and greater whole. Inspired by the idea of element as 'force', each artist weaves its own narrative in a collective synergy. Cristina Calvache, Hugh Mendes, Harry Pye, and Louise Reynolds, all have a strong link to South London and are delighted to be exhibiting at hARTtslane where artists and local people come together to share ideas, explore contemporary issues and be inspired. 1st to 4th of May, open from 11am to 6pm, Sunday from 12pm to 5pm. Private view Friday the 2nd, from 5.30pm to 8pm. ****
Artist # 1 Cristina Calvache
Above: 'Still life with Lavender' (Print) by Cristina Calvache Above: 'Gadgets Resting On A Tree In A Chessnut Lake' (Print) by Cristina Calvache
Cristina is a visual artist and illustrator. Her work explores the everyday object as identity of our context and culture, inspired by archive aesthetics and classic representations from botanic, anatomical, industrial and mystical forms in order to subvert and translate them into contemporary drawing.
In hARTslane Gallery, Cristina is showing for the first time part of her project Lost and Found: where are they going, where do they come from, what are they, a research she has been doing for the last 3 years about appealing objects she finds in places, specially around South London. In her compositions, all the elements are an infographic journey of her experience with the objects she depicts. They are placed in fragments, textures, components, isolated or recontextualised, turning what looks like scientific analysis into something surreal and complex, it stops making any sense as a whole.
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Artist # 2 Hugh Mendes
Above: Obituary: Edgar Degas by Hugh Mendes 30 x 20cm Oil on Linen 2024
Above: Obituary: Mary Cassatt by Hugh Mendes 35 x 25cm Oil on Linen 2024 "These paintings based on obituaries have come to dominate my practice, especially, more recently, those of other artists. This includes re making other artists self portraits to form the basis of the work. Still using a newspaper format, usually referencing The Guardian, but inventing the paintings based on historical artist’s self portraits, such as obituary paintings of Rembrandt and Van Gough. This has meant engaging in the history of art and the practical use of oil paints; different styles and techniques, especially within the western cannon. Also studying how various artists have seen themselves and wished to depict themselves. It has become a fascinating endeavour and is continually bearing unexpected fruit. I sometimes feel as if it is a very lengthy collaboration with so many of my great heroes and mentors from the history of art, especially of painting.
The paintings are mostly in oils on linen and executed in a trompe l’oile manner to replicate the newspaper format. This translation takes them out of a mass media context and into a fine art one as well as specifically referencing some of the history of still life painting, vanitas, memento mori, for instance from 17th century Holland.
This exhibition brings together my most recent obituary paintings, all from 2024, or 2025. It is always interesting how certain groupings of individual lives, brought together by the proximity of their deaths, can give rise to reflections on human history, celebrity and imagery.
My obituary paintings serve as meditations on impermanence and the interconnectedness of life, death, and artistic expression, suggesting the enduring power of creativity in the face of mortality." Hugh Mendes 2025
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Artist # 3 Harry Pye
Above: 'Blake & His Tyger' by Harry Pye with Rowland Smith (acrylic paint on canvas Size: 14 inches by 22 inches. 2025)
Above: 'Whatever Works' by Harry Pye with Rowlad Smith (acrylic paint on canvas: 2023)
"I try to collaborate with friends I love making paintings about things I love. I was introduced to the work of William Blake by my father who was a huge fan of Blake's writings. The creature I painted looks more like the family cat (Mingus Pye) than a tiger. On his deathbed my father made me promise that I would talk to Mingus and he was very worried Mingus would get lonely if I didn't. I paint to try and celebrate what's good about life or to try and cheer myself up. Some of the films of the late Gene Wilder were very important to me in my youth. In the 1990s I had anxiety problems which made me depressed. When I saw Wilder's character in the film 'The Producers' suffer a panic attack it made me think there were people out there more anxious than myself and that it was human and natural to feel anxious sometimes. I was able to forgive myself and move on. I have painted Gene Wilder in a scene from a different film in which he plays a character who falls in love with a sheep called Dolly. The painting is called 'Whatever Works'. My friend Rowland Smith and I painted it in 2003 but it's never been exhibited before. I intend to show more new paintings that feature animals, in particular cows." Harry Pye 2025
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Artist # 4 Louise Reynolds
Above: 'The Cornerstone' by Louise Reynolds, (watercolour pencils on wood panel, 61 x 51cm, 2024) Above: 'The Signal Among the Noise', by Louise Reynolds, (watercolour pencils on wood panel, 61 x 46cm, 2025)
"Habitually reading the news provides a point of departure for her work, by combining prevailing and fad narratives into a vision of a dystopian present and future. Louise Reynolds is interested in the bewildering oversaturation of media we consume, and how little of it we can fully understand. Through this she strives to make works with glimmers of the familiar, with the core inspiration slightly out of reach. Elements of fantasy, distortion and the surreal combine with a dedication to observational drawing, to form a personal magical realism.
Reynolds combines the narratives presented to her in a way that captures both their anxiety and comedy simultaneously, but without representing their original source material. The titles often give clues toward the original sources. Condensing references to both high and low culture into each piece, Reynolds is particularly keen on removing hierarchical structures through her work. This is reflected in her choice of medium, often forgoing traditional oil paints in favour of pencils on wood."
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hARTslane is a socially enagaged art gallery.
Address: 17 Harts Lane, New Cross Gate SE14 5UP
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