In case you’re in London between now and 18 January 2025 and want sanctuary from all of the midwinter festivities, why not head to the Saatchi Gallery for Paper Lower, the brand new exhibition by up to date artist PRIEST?
With shows together with an enormous cardboard diorama, large colouring sheets, a popsicle-stick shack, and pipe-cleaner individuals, at first it appears like a nostalgic journey to a kindergarten craft space. Taking part in with the dimensions of objects – search for the large markers – and introduced in a naive model, the aesthetic is enjoyable and acquainted. Look somewhat nearer, nonetheless, and PRIEST’s true messages grow to be clear.
“The large cardboard diorama focuses on telephone theft in London and the way regular that crime has grow to be for younger individuals to witness,” he explains.
“The popsicle-stick home offers with homelessness and the dearth of secure and steady housing for kids, together with the fact of non permanent lodging. The large colouring-in sheet seems at knife crime and the way youngsters develop up surrounded by the worry and language of it, lengthy earlier than they perceive it. The childlike supplies soften the floor, however the topics are extraordinarily current in day-to-day life.”
Credit score: Jack Corridor, PA Media Assignments
Credit score: c/o Saatchi Gallery / Sergey Novikov
Giant-scale sculptures and installations that in the first place appear so harmless present a mirrored image of society that subverts manufacturers and demonstrates how blind we’re to the pressures youngsters face rising up in a world that caters to adults.
“Housing instability, surveillance, youth crime and the way early youngsters take up the issues round them are central throughout the work. My associate is a youngsters’s social employee, so these points come up in our conversations at house and naturally turned a part of a present that focuses on youngsters’s artwork,” says PRIEST.
“Youngsters transfer by means of a panorama formed by advertising and marketing, crime, stress and grownup issues lengthy earlier than they’ve the understanding for any of it,” he continues. “The model twists sit contained in the work as a result of company affect begins early and is handled as innocent. One of many items seems immediately on the drink Prime and the way aggressively it has been pushed towards youngsters. They’ve turned a sugary vitality product right into a sort of playground standing image.”
Credit score: Jack Corridor, PA Media Assignments
Credit score: c/o Saatchi Gallery / Sergey Novikov
Initially from New Zealand, PRIEST is a self-taught inventive who arrived within the UK by way of Australia, with a background in graffiti artwork. On-line antics, akin to camouflaging himself in a bin bag whereas tagging in Glasgow, caught the eye of the American artist KAWS, who started accumulating PRIEST’s work, resulting in provides of gallery reveals.
From partitions, he moved on to canvas, then started planning bodily sculptures and installations. His 2023 present Past the Streets featured units comprised of supersized Lego-like blocks, Star Wars and Sesame Road characters, and loads of graf. He returned early in 2025 with Mannequin Residing, a mannequin of a city peopled by characters on large picket blocks, with an unlimited picket practice set working by means of it.
Credit score: Jack Corridor, PA Media Assignments
Credit score: Jack Corridor, PA Media Assignments
“Every sculpture requires a special understanding of how one thing will look as soon as scaled up,” says PRIEST. “For instance, the enormous spray paint field diorama at Paper Lower is manufactured from steel, nevertheless it wanted to sag like a cardboard field would. This meant creating it in such a means that it could maintain its personal weight while nonetheless showing tender.”
Chatting with PREIST about his newest present, two issues grow to be clear. Firstly, although naive paintings seems simplistic and childlike, creating it convincingly is something however straightforward. “It has been the toughest model to study and work with because it seems so easy, and I used to be pressured to unlearn loads of issues,” he says.
Secondly, he is proof that you do not want illustration to interrupt into the artwork world. “A gallery doesn’t characterize me, and that was by no means a requirement to be supplied a solo present at Saatchi. If individuals inform you galleries are the one technique to develop as an artist, that’s completely not true. In case you are doing nicely, they’ll method you. Deal with the craft,” says PRIEST.
