Summer 2023
Kemi Onabule, Tommy Cameron, Hazel O’Sullivan, Billy Vanilli, Jake Walker, Olga Krykun
Tommy Camerno
Tommy Camerno (b. 1992) is an artist based in London.
He has recently exhibited at the Upper Gulbenkian Gallery in London as well as participating in projects curated by The Courtauld Curating program and Antoine Schafroth. He has exhibiting internationally in Italy, Germany and USA.
Prior to the RCA Tommy studied as a guest student with Josephine Pryde at UDK in Berlin and received his BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design.
He has used the artist name Tommy Camerno since 2014.
Kemi Onabule
Born 1995 in London,
Kemi Onabule is a painter and printmaker living and working in London. Since graduating from her BA in Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon College Of Art in 2016, she has been included in the Hix Award 2017 and the Ingram Young Artist Award 2017 and recently had her debut Solo Show: ‘Arrival On The Beach’ 2020 at Guts Gallery. She subsequently had her debut in-person solo show at Sim Smith Gallery in the autumn of 2022. In her work she explores the human relationship to nature and its changing role in our lives, our effect on it and the colonial histories that are intertwined with our current ecological predicament.
She is influenced by her Greek, English and Nigerian heritage and their ancient cultures, taking aesthetic and symbolic aspects from each to create a visual language that moves across the various mediums she uses.
Hazel O’Sullivan
Hazel O’Sullivan is a multi-disciplinary visual artist from Ireland working in sculpture, painting and textiles, exploring mythology, retro-futurism and domesticity as a method to speculate Irish futures.
Her works resemble household features and systems that dissect the modernisation of her cultural heritage with Irish materials and symbolism, and she uses multi-disciplinary processes to reflect the specificity of each project she investigates. Hazel encourages the viewer to think more deeply about the materials we surround ourselves with, reflecting on the effects of post-colonialism on our material surroundings and futures.
Billy Vanilli
Billy Vanilli (b. 1995) is a Melbourne-based artist with a distinctive flair for incandescent realism. His paintings focus on the layers within seemingly insignificant or mundane moments. Beginning with written prompts, Vanilli recalls everyday observations, memories and thoughts. Through painting, he explores how these moments transform, distort or become embellished with each revisit. The resulting imagery is luscious, complex and shimmers with sentimentality.
Jake Walker
Jake Walker’s multifaceted practice encompasses painting, drawing, video, dance, and sound. With a particular fascination for diagrams and scores, Walker's visual language is informed by a desire to convey rhythm and movement within mark-making. His drawings often serve as a launchpad for the creation of dance and sound projects, including his collaborative album, 'Wristband Loops' and his drawing/dance workshop hosted at Eye To Pencil studios. In addition to exhibiting his works in traditional gallery settings, Jake frequently takes his art beyond these confines - his video pieces find a dynamic home in nightclubs and raves.
Olga Krykun
Olga Krykun uses diverse types of media in her art work, including mainly video, objects and painting, which she subsequently assembles to create complex installations. By combining elements of fictional narratives with references to real cultural and socially relevant symbols, she invents a self-contradicting mythology of our day-and-age. Her practice is strongly rooted in intuition, emotion and personal experience, the elements of which are approached with a distinct visual style and specific aesthetic, making her works reminiscent of surreal visions or a kind of dreamlike trance, resulting in a highly suggestive viewer experience.