Felt not Thought… Works on Paper
Anthony Corner, Gerard Hemsworth, Barbara Nicholls, John Plowman, Stella Whalley,
Sarah Kent + Sharon Leahy-Clark, Rebecca Scott, Ashley Beerdat, Alex Giles
Curated by Rebecca Scott
16 May to 4 July 2026
Exhibition Details
Felt not Thought…Works on Paper began with an introduction to the works by Anthony Corner through VeniceArtFactory. Corner had been working with them for several years. Through a collaboration with VeniceArtFactory, Shh…what’s that? was exhibited in Vestry St. in 2024. Here the works were taped to the gallery walls, by removing the frame, there is an instant fragility, the barrier between the viewer and the work becomes intimate and approachable.
The title Felt not Thought is taken from an essay and dialogue with Corner’s paintings which will be released alongside the exhibition, written by Professor Michael Banissy. For curator Rebecca Scott, it acted as a starting point, a spectrum. On one end we have “felt”, spontaneity and intuitiveness, and the opposite end we have “thought”, rational thinking and/or conceptual thinking.
For instance, the meticulous decisions of Gerard Hemsworth are very considered, each painting carefully designed bringing together signs and representations of modernist art alongside cartoonish narratives to create contradictions between the serious and absurd ending in an uncanny and subversive outcome (1).
Corner’s paintings are the opposite, rigorously worked, the marks shifting, erased, and repeated, evolving from marks of scripts. “Anthony’s artistry evokes a profound and often unconscious merging of the senses. While visually captivating, his work delves deeper by alluding to the realms of touch and sound, creating a synaesthetic-like experience for the observer” (2).
From there the conversation broadened and Scott began thinking about the contrast between the artists, the way they use mark-making to create a dialogue. The vagaries of watercolour are evident in Barbara Nicholls’ works, the masterful controlling of a fluid medium, emerging through the manipulation of behaviour of pigment in ever-increasing quantities of water (3). These are also seen in the soft mystical watercolours depicting whimsical plants and/or otherness by Stella Whalley. The medium changes within the works by Ashley Beerdat, oil pastel, less fluid, yet the movements instinctual, moving freely and without decisive thought, the immediate contact on paper creating a vulnerability and allowing creation without hesitation.
Spontaneous and immediate mark-making is evident in the collaborative and performative drawings of Sarah Kent and Sharon Leahy-Clark who will be creating a live performative piece at the private view in Cross Lane Projects. The vibrant strokes created in the moment allow the visitors to view an aspect that is usually hidden away in studios, the vulnerability to the piece will be on display from creation and the finished piece will be directly installed once completed.
Scott’s work sits in the middle of the spectrum, a bridge between the felt and thought. The text, excerpts from A Sport of Nature by Nadine Gordimer and The Tao of the first grandchild by her late mother Prudence Scott written as Marie Scott. The emojis, light and whimsical, a universal language are glued onto the paper followed by the off-set stencils making the final version arbitrary.
Sitting alongside these at the centre of the spectrum are John Plowman’s drawings exploring the dynamic between two and three dimensions, the made and the yet to be made. His drawings feature sculptural forms that are yet to be physically created and is a key element to his art practice, using paper as a constructor’s tool. At first glance, the construction drawings are meticulous, the lines straight and clear. As the eye draws closer, the line becomes more chaotic and feel more spontaneous.
Starting in geometry, Alex Giles’ paintings are bold and graphic, hard edges that exist to emphasise the colour fields within the work. His use of this adds a narrative that expresses a love of movement and the incidental beauty of the mundane. Similarly to Hemsworth, utilising simple shapes and lines that often show whimsy.
Click here to read Felt not Thought by Michael Banissy.
About the artists
Anthony Corner is a graduate of Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. He was artist in residence at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and has designed sets and costumes for opera. His work has been exhibited extensively, including in Venice and at the Royal Academy London and has been acquired by numerous private collections, including Citi Bank, the Groucho Club and overseas collectors he has taught drawing to undergraduate and postgraduate level. He lives and works in London and Oxfordshire.
Gerard Hemsworth was born in London in 1945. He studied at St Martin’s School of Art, London from 1963-67 and his work has been exhibited internationally since the 1970’s. Art education was extremely important to him, and he maintained close connections to art schools throughout his career, teaching in many institutions in both the UK and internationally. The last position he held was as Professor of Fine Art and Director of the MFA Fine Art Programme at Goldsmiths, University of London which he held until 2011. In that year he moved his studio from London to Hastings and subsequently designed and built a house with studios in the East Sussex countryside where he lived and worked until his death in 2021.
Barbara Nicholls lives and works in London and Bollington, Cheshire and is represented by Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London/Brussels. She studied at Goldsmiths College, University of London BA Fine Art (1982-86), University of East London MFA (1996-98) and Doctorate in Fine Art (2000-06). Nicholls has had her work widely and internationally exhibited, including Norwich Castle Museum (2026) Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Germany (2026 & 2015) Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, (2025, 2023 & 2022), Ben Parsons Gallery + Hannah Payne (2023) The Jetty Museum Windermere, (2022) JGM Gallery London (2020 & 2019). Nicholls has been the recipient of several bursaries and awards including grants from the Arts Council England and the British Council. Her work is held in the collection of The British Museum, Kurhaus Kleve Germany, The New Art Gallery Walsall UK, Willhelm Kaiser Museum Germany and private collections.
John Plowman has a practice that encompasses both studio and curatorial activity, he has exhibited in and curated one person and group exhibitions in this country and abroad. Recent solo and group exhibitions include 2026: ‘Anglian Abstract’ The Minories, Colchester UK, ‘Things Fall’ Phoenix Gallery, Exeter, UK. 2025: ‘Decoy Ahoy’, The Cut, Halesworth, UK, ‘Anglian Embassy’, Supermarket Art Fair, Stockholm, Juxtapose, Aarhus, Denmark, Sluice, Seyoisfjorour, Iceland, The Art Station, Saxmundham, UK. Summer Exhibition, Royal Acedemy, London, UK. 2024: ‘Antimonumental’ Thameside Studio Gallery, London, ‘Salon des Etrangers’, Siger Gallery and Venice Art Factory, Venice, 2023: ‘John Plowman:Sculptor’ Black Barn Contemporary, Cockley Cley, UK. From 2004–16 Beacon Art Project, his curatorial project, worked regionally, nationally and internationally curating and commissioning artworks from over 70 artists providing opportunities for people to experience contemporary visual art in non-gallery spaces, usually heritage sites. He currently co-runs The Grange Projects who’s In Residence Programme hosts since 2022, a series of residencies for artists and creatives from May to September.
Stella Whalley is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and curator celebrated for her innovative engagement with feminist and social themes, currently through watercolour and ceramics. Her practice merges traditional techniques with contemporary narratives, exploring topics that resonate on both personal and societal levels. National and international exhibitions at Cross Lane Projects Kendall, Vestry St Gallery the London Art Fair, exhibitions alongside the Venice Biennale. Arts council funded for the Nakanojo Biennale installation in Japan. A 4,000-meter yarn installation at the Wilson Gallery in Cheltenham, the Victoria & Albert Museum London, Birmingham City Art Gallery, and a book launch for Tokyo Tales at the Whitechapel Gallery.
Sarah Kent is an artist/performer, critic, tutor and curator. She has performed at venues including Tate Modern, Tate Britain, V&A, Hayward, Barbican, Whitworth Art Gallery, Zabludowicz Collection, the Nunnery, Royal College of Art, Winchester and Chelsea Colleges of Art, the Ryder Project, Fitzrovia Gallery, Raven Row, Chisenhale and the Coronet Theatre. Sharon Leahy-Clark is an artist based at the Centre for Recent Drawing (C4rD), a drawing tutor and has exhibited nationally and internationally. Head on a Plate Projects (HOPP) was formed in 2022 by Sarah Kent and Sharon Leahy-Clark, both of whom are practicing artists (Kent studied at the Slade School and Leahy-Clark at the Royal College). Their individual practices are not remotely alike – Kent is a performance artist and Leahy-Clark a painter – but they decided to draw together to see what would emerge. The experiment proved to be so rewarding and the results so unexpected – like nothing either of them would produce on their own – that continued the collaboration, and HOPP was born.
Born in Cumbria, Rebecca Scott gained a BA in Fine Art (Painting) from Chelsea School of Art, and an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, London. Scott has work in private and public collections nationally and internationally, and has exhibited in London, Cumbria, Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. In 2019, she was a finalist for Cumbria Life’s Visual Artist of the Year award. She currently lives and works between London and Cumbria, and is Director and Co-Founder of Cross Lane Projects, an independent art space in Kendal, and Vestry St. a salon-style gallery space in London. Recent group exhibitions: 2026 Nostalgia, curated by Pascal Rousson, Vestry St. London; 2026 Resolution, Thames-Side Studio Gallery, London; 2025 The Discontents: Part II, curated by Zavier Ellis, Vestry St. London; 2025 Confluences, Cross Lane Projects, Kendal; 2025 Subtle Connections: Water and the Space in Between, Ruup & Form, London. Recent solo exhibitions: 2024 The Line and the Scribble, curated by Stella Whalley, Vestry St. London; 2024 Small Boats & Family Matters, Cross Lane Projects, Kendal; 2024 Art in the Atrium, STILL LIFE PAINTINGS – Tina Balmer & Rebecca Scott, Low Wood, Windermere; 2024 Machinations, Paintings by Rebecca Scott, Heaton Cooper Studio, Grasmere.
Ashley Beerdat is a painter and muralist based in Toronto. She has a BA in Studio Art and Art History from Western University and her MFA from the University of Waterloo. Her work is held in Mississauga’s permanent corporate art collection and has been exhibited at KWAG gallery, Tom Thomson Gallery, The Body Shop Studios, Small Arms Inspection Building, Latitude 53, The Artist Project and Withrow common gallery. Passionate about public art, Ashley has painted murals for the city of Brampton, Mississauga, and Toronto. Ashley was a recipient of the SHRCC Doctoral Fellowship, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the Walter Metzger Memorial Award. She has also received grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Arts Council.
Born in rural Northumberland, in the Northeast of England Alex Giles now lives and works in Lancaster. After graduating in Fine Art from the University of Derby in 2006, Alex pursued a rewarding career in film, progressing to the role of production designer. However, in early 2020 he decided to dedicate his full attention to painting, and things moved fast. Giles’ first solo show ‘Eye Hurters’ opened late 2020 at the White Elephant Gallery in Lancashire and the entire collection was acquired by the Deji Museum, Nanjing, China. Following this Alex has continued to exhibit and sell work consistently at both a local and international level, and his fourth solo exhibition ‘Progressivism’ opened in January 2024 at Casal son Tugores, Alaró, Mallorca, Spain In January 2026, Alex was awarded a major commission for Universal Music – producing the artwork for their presence at the 2026 Brit awards in Manchester.
Image Gallery
Image Gallery features works:
Barbara Nicholls: Magma Ocean, 2016, watercolour on 638gsm HP, 2.2m x 1.52m; Shock Metamorphosis, 2015, watercolour on 638gsm HP, 2.2m x 1.52m; Abyssal Plain, 2014, watercolour on 638gsm HP, 2.2m x 1.52m.
John Plowman: Hybrid Construction Details #1, 2, 3, 2026, coloured pencil on paper, 114 x 180cm.
Rebecca Scott: Tao of the First Grandchild, 2025, acrylic and watercolour on paper, 230 x 100cm; Skin and Hair, 2025, acrylic paint and spray paint on paper, 150 x 120cm.
Stella Whalley: Wast Water, 2026, watercolour on paper, 150 x 120cm; Langdale, 2026, watercolour on paper, 150 x 120cm; Ashness, 2026, watercolour on paper, 150 x 120cm.
Alex Giles: Trees, 2026, coloured card, 120 x 140cm; Hank, 2026, coloured card, 120 x 84cm; Gateway, 2026, coloured card, 120 x 145cm.
Sarah Kent + Sharon Leahy-Clark: Something’s Gotta Give, 2024, mixed media on paper, 150 x 289cm; Private View Live Performance, 2024, mixed media on paper, 150 x 255cm approx; Mad World, 2024, mixed media on paper, 150 x 255cm.
Ashley Beerdat: where colours dream 1-17, 2026, oil pastel on paper, 22.8 x 30.4cm.
Gerard Hemsworth: Suburban Garden (Green), 2009, inkjet print, 96 x 96cm; Grass and Bunker, 2016, inkjet print, 50 x 50cm; Little Bunker, 2018, inkjet print, 31.7 x 31.7cm.
Anthony Corner, Felt not Thought, 2026, mixed media on paper, installation, dimensions vary.
Photography by Rebecca Larkin, Alex Giles, and Liam Collins. All works copyright the artists.