Varvara Roza is a prominent private art advisor and artist representative on the London art scene, whose significant impact on the global art community is highly regarded for its firm commitment to advancing the careers of contemporary artists at the cutting edge of culture.
This year, she inaugurates her own gallery in London’s St James’s, presenting new works by an impressive selection of international talent, including notable new signings, such as Tom De Freston, Hynek Martinec, Paul Hodgson, and Nathaniel Rackowe – an eclectic group of mid-career artists who marry talent and technical mastery with innovative conceptual ideas.
“I am very attracted to artistry that explores the fundamentals of human experience, regardless of form,” says Roza, when asked about the new additions to her stable. “I only work with artists who have this kind of depth to their work, and who communicate profound emotional scope.”
Here, the dynamo of the contemporary art scene introduces us to four key artists she will be exhibiting over the coming months in her new space.
HYNEK MARTINEC
“The Czech-British painter Hynek Martinec is a London-based artist whose distinctive work explores existential themes. His artistic practice is informed by the methodologies of the Old Masters, which he brilliantly re-energises via modern visual discourse.
To my mind, he creates a wonderful bridge between past and present in his work, which combines myriad references in an ultra-modern hybrid form. I love the way in which he reminds us that all art is a form of iteration, referencing the past while incorporating modern symbols.
In many senses, he creates works very classically, but his works are also infused with a vital energy, retelling the old stories of art like they are contemporary tales.”
TOM DE FRESTON
“The British abstract figurative artist Tom de Freston is a painter and author whose creative expression is always deeply personal.
The cycle of paintings I will be exhibiting at Varvara Roza were created across a four-year period, during which his wife experienced recurrent miscarriages.
These immensely moving paintings are incredibly evocative and explore thresholds, desire, and distance – both between lovers, and between painter and painting.
I believe they almost represent hymns to the pregnant body, while, simultaneously, acting as thresholds to a kind of underworld, with displaced figures, emerging and vanishing into veiled, shattered spaces. I feel he is an artist who is truly at the zenith of his capabilities.”
PAUL HODGSON
“The multi-disciplinary British artist Paul Hodgson is an intellectual powerhouse who deconstructs familiar visual languages to create a nuanced dialogue between abstraction and figuration within what he describes as the sculptor’s studio.
This conceptual workspace he has created functions as a laboratory for his thought and expression, allowing for a continual re-examination of the themes of creation and deconstruction that are so central to his oeuvre.
Essentially, Paul is an artist who seeks to intervene between the subject and the object via the verb, offering us a space in which we are invited to think about what is being represented in such a way that we can’t make too many assumptions about what we are seeing.
He has found a unique place within his artistic discourse for philosophy, and I think the way in which he explores and attempts to explain the world around us is astounding.”
NATHANIEL RACKOWE
“The large-scale sculptural works of British artist Nathaniel Rackowe contain an exploration of a certain kind of dystopia that we all recognise exists around us in the city, and reflect the vagaries of moving through urban space, but they are also infused with a wonderfully uncanny aesthetic.
I believe Nathaniel is an artist who brilliantly communicates brief, passing, and almost transcendental moments of beauty in the public space, where you come across something you don't expect.
When you encounter his work, there is that sense that, as a viewer, you may recognise the materials employed, but, somehow, the work reveals something entirely new from them.
The smaller scale works we will be exhibiting in November are simply beyond exciting.”
See more at varvararozagalleries.com
