Primarily based in Devon with two younger youngsters, Alexis Soul-Grey is forging a profession on her personal phrases. Final week the 44-year-old artist opened her first solo exhibition with Bo Lee and Workman, a comparatively new gallery in Bruton, Somerset, which picked up Soul-Grey after London’s Simon Lee gallery folded final yr. The closure got here an important second within the artist’s profession.
“It was heart-breaking. I used to be becoming a member of this nice gallery and I’d taken on an even bigger studio. However, simply as I used to be as a consequence of have a giant solo present, they went into administration,” Soul-Grey says. Thankfully, the artist was in a position to divert most of her work to a different exhibition at her Los Angeles gallery, Bel Ami.
Now, she is exhibiting eleven new canvases within the Bruton gallery, together with Final Breath. Soul-Grey created Final Breath whereas finding out her postgraduate diploma on the Royal Faculty of Artwork in London as a mature scholar. Although graduating from the RCA marked a excessive level in her profession, it additionally capped a very tough time in her life. Soul-Grey’s mom died by assisted suicide, after being identified with most cancers, when the artist was simply 25 and nonetheless finding out on the Royal Drawing College. “It was a quick expertise, she died in 5 months,” Soul-Grey says.
As a consequence, a lot of her work “comes from displacement from a grief expertise”, as Soul-Grey places it. “I used to be happy with my mum, though it was extraordinarily painful. However what I skilled after was a really destroyed household. A household that had been taken aside. I very a lot felt orphaned as a result of my dad wasn’t in a very good place. It was actually like a reduce out household.”
Set up view of Alexis Soul-Grey: Reminiscence Play at Bo Lee and Workman
Courtesy of Bo Lee and Workman
Reduce outs usually seem in Soul-Grey’s work. She started making collages throughout the first lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic and now they type an integral a part of her apply. Different instances, figures are left intact, reminiscent of the pinnacle and shoulders of a younger woman Soul-Grey sourced from {a magazine} within the cobalt blue portray Spring has Come Early and it’s as if the Season Marks my Unhappiness.
Discovered photos of youngsters usually function the start line for the artist’s work. The Horse Whisperer (2024) began from {a photograph} of a gaggle of younger youngsters posing subsequent to a chained bear that Soul-Grey purchased on eBay. “I have no idea the place they’re, however they’re imagined to be having enjoyable,” she says. “I’ll very often be drawn to a picture for causes my aware thoughts will not be all the time instantly conscious of—on this occasion it’s the bear and the kids’s unease that’s related, as a result of I keep in mind seeing a chained bear on vacation as a toddler and feeling a deep sense of disappointment.” The horse head, in the meantime, is symbolic of her mom. “In my reminiscence she is all the time with horses,” Soul-Grey says.
The Horse Whisperer (2024) began from {a photograph} of a gaggle of younger youngsters posing subsequent to a chained bear that Soul-Grey purchased on eBay
Courtesy of Bo Lee and Workman
Changing into a mom herself offered all-too acquainted challenges for the artist. “I did discover it fairly exhausting. I wouldn’t say motherhood was a [creative] catalyst for me, as a result of I felt very a lot penned into that life and suffocated,” she says. “I felt like I had a number of years taken from me via grief after which motherhood, and that I needed to discover this power, which got here from someplace very deep.”
Discovering her place inside a gallery system geared in direction of growth and productiveness, usually to the detriment of artists’ psychological well being, was an added stress. “It’s fairly exhausting to return again from motherhood and discover that urgency inside the gallery system,” Soul-Grey says. Alongside her Los Angeles gallery, the artist can also be represented in Sweden by Wetterling Gallery.
However discovering feminine gallerists near house in Jemma Hickman and Alice Workman, who additionally understood the pressures of juggling motherhood with a profession, was a boon. The pair opened their gallery in Might 2023, in a former Methodist church off the stylish excessive road in Bruton, which has gone from rural backwater city to cultural vacation spot and agency favorite with arty Londoners in lower than a decade. That is largely right down to Hauser & Wirth, which launched a gallery and store at Durslade Farm in 2014.
Away from the blue-chip chutneys and cheeses, there’s a thriving grassroots scene rising in Bruton and its surrounding space. For the reason that pandemic, the UK artwork world has develop into barely much less London-centric, with a big variety of artists, writers and gallerists shifting out of the town—although Soul-Grey was forward of the curve, shifting to Devon in 2016.
As we speak’s slower, extra thought of tempo fits the artist, who says she is now aiming to make ten “profitable” work a yr. On the time of writing, her Bruton present had nearly bought out (costs vary from £2,500 to £25,000). “Though final yr financially was a shock, having had two actually profitable years, now that has settled for me and I’ve survived it, this surroundings is far more healthy,” Soul-Grey says. “I’m now doing issues on my phrases, and I really feel a lot better.”
Alexis Soul-Grey: Reminiscence Play, Bo Lee and Workman, till 8 March
