Sara Birns, Self-Portrait 2004 (2026), 2026, Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper,
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Sara Birns, Self-Portrait 2004 (2026), 2026, Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper,
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Sara Birns, Self-Portrait Blue Purple Adam Rainbow, 2026, Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper,
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Sara Birns, Self-Portrait Blue Purple Adam Rainbow, 2026 (Detail), Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Sara Birns, Self-Portrait Purple, 2026, Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper,
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Sara Birns, Self-Portrait Purple, 2026 (Detail), Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper,
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Sara Birns, Self-Portrait Smile, 2026, Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper,
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Sara Birns, Self-Portrait Smile, 2026 (Detail), Watercolour, oil pastel and coloured pencil on 100% cotton paper,
Framed: 33 x 29 cm (13 x 11 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Lauren Brown, Weird Fog, 2026, Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm (11 3/4 x 15 3/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Lauren Brown, Weird Fog, 2026 (Detail), Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm (11 3/4 x 15 3/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Nada Elkalaawy, An Original II, 2022 - 2026, Oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm (29 7/8 x 24 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Nada Elkalaawy, An Original II, 2022 - 2026 (Detail), Oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm (29 7/8 x 24 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Nada Elkalaawy, Between Courses, 2026, Oil on canvas, 50.7 x 40.3 cm (20 x 15 7/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Nada Elkalaawy, Between Courses, 2026 (Detail), Oil on canvas, 50.7 x 40.3 cm (20 x 15 7/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Tom Halsall, Hail to the Chief, 2026, Oil on canvas, 100 x 90 cm (39 3/8 x 35 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Tom Halsall, Hail to the Chief, 2026 (Detail), Oil on canvas, 100 x 90 cm (39 3/8 x 35 3/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Tom Halsall, All Things are Begun, 2026, Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm (19 3/4 x 15 3/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Tom Halsall, All Things are Begun, 2026 (Detail), Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm (19 3/4 x 15 3/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Graham Silveria Martin, In Touch, 2026, Acrylic on calico, steel frame, 122 x 102 cm (48 x 40 1/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Graham Silveria Martin, In Touch, 2026 (Detail), Acrylic on calico, steel frame, 122 x 102 cm (48 x 40 1/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Graham Silveria Martin, A Place Beyond, 2026, Acrylic on calico, 40 x 30 cm (15 3/4 x 11 3/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Graham Silveria Martin, A Place Beyond, 2026 (Detail), Acrylic on calico, 40 x 30 cm (15 3/4 x 11 3/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Jordan Rubio, What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world belongs to you, 2026, Oil on linen, 180 x 160 cm (70 7/8 x 63 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Jordan Rubio, What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world belongs to you, 2026 (Detail), Oil on linen, 180 x 160 cm (70 7/8 x 63 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Jordan Rubio, Do you have a lighter? It already smells like kerosene, 2026, Oil on linen, 150 x 120 cm (59 x 47 1/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Jordan Rubio, Do you have a lighter? It already smells like kerosene, 2026 (Detail), Oil on linen, 150 x 120 cm (59 x 47 1/4 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Skye Tholstrup, Because of You, 2026, Wood, rose thorns, blown ostrich egg, 44 x 14 cm (17 3/8 x 5 1/2 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Skye Tholstrup, Because of You, 2026 (Detail), Wood, rose thorns, blown ostrich egg, 44 x 14 cm (17 3/8 x 5 1/2 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Skye Tholstrup, Girl with Claw, 2026, Collage on paper, Framed: 33.5 x 46 cm (13 1/4 x 18 1/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Skye Tholstrup, Girl with Claw, 2026 (Detail), Collage on paper, Framed: 33.5 x 46 cm (13 1/4 x 18 1/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Skye Tholstrup, Harpies, 2026, Collage on paper, Framed: 33.5 x 46 cm (13 1/4 x 18 1/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Skye Tholstrup, Harpies, 2026 (Detail), Collage on paper, Framed: 33.5 x 46 cm (13 1/4 x 18 1/8 in)
Photo: @showpickle
Matt Carey-Williams is delighted to present Scene XVII: pity this busy monster. Bringing together the practices of seven artists, this Scene presents a dialogue across differing approaches to form, material, and image making, united by a shared engagement with instability, otherness, and transformation. We live in difficult times - this phrase risks cliché through repetition, yet it remains insistently true. The present is marked by anxiety, discombobulation, and a pervasive sense that what was once known, trusted, and stabilising now actively fuels dread. Certainty has given way to flux; moments of beauty are repeatedly transmuted into scenes of horror. This drift from the known to the unknown has been articulated, sometimes incisively, sometimes clumsily, across art, film, and literature over the past decade.
'pity the busy monster' speaks to a shared experience where our lives have become more fragile and fraught; where we have lost intellectual, corporeal and libidinal hegemony to bodies political and technological (even as those bodies are shaped by other humans). The creature is a totem, agent, cypher, hieroglyph, monster and portrait of this fractured time we all share, sliding between abstraction and figuration; offering sense only for it collapse.