New Pop-Up Gallery Comes to The Sidings

We are excited to announce our first-ever pop-up art exhibition at The Sidings. The solo show of new and past works by Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2022 artist Lorena Levi. Lorena is a narrative portraiture painter – if you don’t know what that is (we’ll be honest, we didn’t) then let us explain using the words of Nicole Zisman, who has curated the show.

“Her practice is research-based, frequently dipping into niche internet spaces to gain stories for paintings. She collages found images and information (gathered from speaking to strangers on chat room sites, or from listening to podcasts by real people) together with her own images to create compositions that display an imagined narrative, and tell a story in a snapshot.”

The in-between captures mid-action or mid-conversation moments through narrative portraiture, and features paintings on wood and canvas and works on paper. The show’s curation responds to Lorena’s simultaneous interest in and dissatisfaction with Renaissance, Baroque and Tudor depictions of familial scenes, especially given how differently the concept of family manifests practically within the artist’s Turkish Jewish culture and heritage, and her daily life. 

Natural situations and periods in between dialogue or decisive interaction are broadly explored within the works. Various tender but complex ideas of family (close friendships, mother and child, married couples) are crossed with different stages of familial life (the very beginnings, coming-of-age moments, elder years) within an intimate cast of characters that the artist has either imagined, or interacted with in physical and online spaces. Lorena’s distinctive painterly approach emphasises both the hybridity between real and imagined within her compositions, and the humour associated with existing in a state of naive uncertainty of what could be next.”

Lorena is a graduate of Edinburgh University and now works from her studio at V.O Curations. She is part of the Alveston Fine Art collection and exhibits at spaces such as Mall Galleries, Fitzrovia Gallery, South London Gallery and the RSA New Contemporaries 2023 – so we are in great company here at The Sidings. 

Lorena was awarded the Astaire Prize at the end of her degree. She also won the 2022 Jackson’s Painting Prize, and now sits on the judging panel for the 2023 prize.

This is the first in hopefully many shows that will be happening at The Sidings this coming year. To learn about what’s coming before anyone else, follow us on Instagram @sidingswaterloo or visit our website and sign up to receive our newsletter.