André Hemer's (born 1981, New Zealand) artistic practice explores the intersections between digital media and painting. He received his PhD in Painting from the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, Australia in 2015 and his MA from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 2006, including a Postgraduate Research Residency at the Royal College of Art, London (2006).  André Hemer scans physical objects (either found or created from paint) en plein air to capture not only a version of the object, but also the surrounding landscape and atmospheric conditions of that particular day.  Hemer refers to the works as “recomposed landscapes”, but in their abstraction and the visible “glitches” where forms appear broken or fractured as a result of the artist’s hand moving the objects across the flatbed, the images also possess a compelling sense of the uncanny. 

Kimathi Mafafo, (b. 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practise ranges from embroidery, oil painting to installation. Mafafo obtained a National Diploma in Fine Arts from the College of Cape Town in 2007 and a National Diploma in Film and Video from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2016. Born in the semi-arid Kimberley in the Northern Cape of South Africa, Mafafo questions historical stereotypes around gender inequality in Africa. She primarily focuses on celebrating the black female and abstracted forms placing them in often verdant imaging characterised by lush greenery and sensuous drapery, that are far removed from the dusty mining town where she grew up. The artist has recently organized a group of Capetonian woman into an informal traditional embroidery society. 

Martine Poppe (B. 1988, Norway) has been living and working in London, Oslo and Paris.  Poppe graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art BA and MFA in 2011 and 2013 respectively. The artist’s source materials, which are often photographs or textiles, instigate her process. Poppe's paintings carry the effects of diffracted light and overexposed photography, as well as the pixelation of blown-up digital images.Sometimes she affixes the source material behind translucent fabrics on stretchers, creating a screen that she can see through and work on with paint. At other times, she tears and scrounges it up, or reshapes it as standing barriers in the exhibition space. Poppe’s works are developed from the fluidity between the different materials she employs, negotiating the boundaries between abstraction and representation, opening the work up for the viewer to situate themselves within the boundaries, and expectations that her practice negotiates. 

Vibeke Slyngstad (B. 1968) is a Norwegian artist currently based in Oslo. She studied at the Meisterschule für Malerei, HTL Graz in Austria as well as at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo and the Documentary/ Animation class at MRDH Volda. Slyngstad has been exhibiting worldwide since the 1990s and her works are known for their high psychological complexity. Her practice is rooted in Romanticism while at the same time referring equally to contemporary photography’s critical view on the impact of the human imprint.

Richard Stone (B. 1974) is a London-based artist who received his MA from Central Saint Martins. Each of Stone’s works are an arrested moment between stillness and movement and together form an idiosyncratic view on the world. This includes exploring masculinity in historic sculpture with a contemporary viewpoint, through to a universal sensuality of form and colour in painting. Recent sculptural works have included a series of marble flags that articulate the continued relevance of beauty in classical materials alongside works that draw on the symbolism of the horse.  His recent sculptural paintings oscillate similarly between classical and contemporary concerns. Each of these particular works has a specific movement and is accented with an intense mono or colour hue to reflect a different mood.