AN UNCOMMON THREAD
Hauser & Wirth is pleased to present ‘An Uncommon Thread’, a group exhibition featuring 10 contemporary artists living and working in the UK. The group exhibition highlights the transformative power of unconventional mediums in evoking personal and collective memories.
February 8 – April 21, 2025
Featuring Rachael Louise Bailey, Max Boyla, KV Duong, Charlotte Edey, Nour Jaouda, Lindsey Mendick, Jack O’Brien, Nengi Omuku, Tai Shani and Georg Wilson. Each artist demonstrates an unwavering commitment to the integral role materials and techniques play in their creative process; employing unexpected painting surfaces, adapting formal craft traditions and repurposing discarded products into compelling works. Through individual investigations of identity, tradition, nature, fantasy and the environment, the artists invite viewers to engage with the rich stories woven into each work.
This multidisciplinary exhibition follows ‘Present Tense’ (2024) and is part of an ongoing initiative at Hauser & Wirth Somerset that champions emerging and mid-career artists beyond Hauser & Wirth’s roster. An events and learning program will run alongside the exhibition, engaging with key themes addressed throughout the galleries, driven by a curiosity and inventive approach to materiality and process. The Bourgeois Gallery opens the exhibition with works by Nengi Omuku, Tai Shani and Jack O’Brien, exploring the complexities of human connection, social memory and historical narratives associated with place. Nengi Omuku divides her practice between Nigeria and London, blending western oil painting with Nigeria’s textile craftsmanship.
Omuku’s works represent scenes of natural co-existence where otherworldly figures are ambiguous or in flux, removed from hierarchies of subject and habitat. Tai Shani weaves a cosmic realm in a new installation that continues to reimagine female otherness as a perfect totality. Shani’s cacophony of color, pattern and organic form immerse the viewer in an act of world-building in which feminism, the sublime and mythology merge. Jack O’Brien’s erotically charged assemblages push their physical limits and instil a sense of temporality, or near collapse, evoking a tension between objects, materiality and architecture. O’Brien’s sculptures harness disparate elements to challenge codes relating to the body and sexuality, as well as a collective moment in post-industrial London and the formal systems that surround us.
Through her dynamic works, Abney invites viewers to embrace imperfection and reimagine spirituality as an adaptive, deeply personal act. Whether through religious iconography or the playful exploration of mass-market culture, Winging It celebrates the messy, improvisational process of finding meaning and strength in an unpredictable world.