Phoebe Unwin

Phoebe Unwin fluidly uses oils, acrylics, pastels, watercolours and graphite in her sensorial works, carefully selecting her materials to best reflect the mood or emotion of the chosen subject matter. Never working from direct observation or photography, Unwin is principally concerned with painting what “something feels like, rather than what it looks like”. Fragments of figuration allow audiences to almost exactly recognise the plant, décor, vehicle or textile Unwin had recreated from her imagination. The translucent painterly quality and the amorphous bleeding of blues, pinks and yellows generates a cloudy sensation that echoes processes of memory or recollection. This deployment of colour and observation of tone is reflective of the colour work of Mark Rothko, while Unwin’s aqueous brushstrokes bow their heads to the Post-Impressionists. When looking at the works of Unwin, the viewer is utterly transported to a particular sensation through her intimate impression and understanding of a specific time and place. The image itself may be unclear, but its emotion is sensuously translated. ...

Amanda Wilkinson opened her gallery in November 2017, having been a partner in Wilkinson Gallery, and brought with her the artists that she had worked with since 2003. Most of these internationally renowned artists had their first solo UK exhibition at the gallery: Joan Jonas and Shimabuku in 2004, Sung Hwan Kim in 2007, Jimmy DeSana in 2009, and Laurie Simmons in 2011. The program has also introduced younger artists such as Heman Chong, Phoebe Unwin, Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė all of whom have solo exhibitions in public institutions this year. Amanda Wilkinson is a trustee of the Derek Jarman Estate and is the sole gallery who represents the work. The program continues to highlight key historical artists who are little known to the wider art world, including Paolo Gioli, Ketty La Rocca and Margaret Raspé and will introduce new artists to the program in 2020 in keeping with the gallery’s experimental and cross-generational approach. The gallery has presented four Feature booths at ArtBasel in the past , featuring six artists from the program. Eight out of the twelve artists represented by the gallery had solo museum exhibitions in 2019/2020. ...