Lane Gallery London is pleased to present In the Margins, a solo exhibition by New Zealand-born, London-based artist Gwenyth Fugard. Featuring a new body of work, the exhibition will be on view at Lane Gallery London’s pop-up venue, 12 Saint George Street, W1S 2FB, from March 28 to April 2.
In the Margins unveils a body of work that emerges from a delicate balance between structure and fluidity. Fugard creates a space where material and process take precedence, allowing abstraction to unfold in its purest, most elemental state. Initiating each painting within a system of imposed constraints, Fugard embraces a process shaped by interventions and interruptions, responding intuitively. Rather than embedding explicit narratives or commentary, her work remains focused on the fundamental experience of painting—its materiality, its process, and the depth that emerges through sustained attention to surface and sensation.
The title In the Margins highlights a defining element of Fugard’s visual language—the delicate dissolution of pigment into raw canvas or linen, revealing the painting’s material foundation. This quiet yet deliberate treatment of the periphery is central to her compositions, where light is either invited in or withheld, generating an understated tension. These margins are not incidental but active thresholds where presence and absence continuously negotiate their place.
Fugard’s practice is deeply rooted in materiality and process. Her non-representational works do not abstract from external references but emerge through a meticulous interplay between intention and chance. Employing a tactile approach, she explores how materials interact before stitching them together to form the painting’s substrate. Through assemblage techniques—folding, stitching, tearing, and layering—she constructs surfaces that possess a distinct tactility and visceral presence.
Her paintings exude a quiet, meditative intensity, balancing fluid abstraction with a precise compositional rigor. The interplay of opacity and translucency, movement, and stillness, imbues her work with an ephemeral yet grounded presence. This tension between weight and lightness offers a contemplative space, drawing the viewer into a nuanced dialogue with materiality and gesture. In the Margins reveals abstraction not as a fixed statement but as a dynamic, evolving experience.
Fugard’s non-representational paintings emphasize space, leaving expanses of negative space that resist traditional focal points. In the Margins suggests a state of liminality, where meaning emerges subtly rather than through overt gestures. Each painting negotiates a space between intention and spontaneity, inviting an intimate, prolonged engagement in which the act of looking becomes as integral as the act of making.
Gwenyth Fugard lives and works in London.
© Text and Photo Courtesy of Lane Gallery London
