Aspex Portsmouth championS the next generation of contemporary artists in new exhibition
The Shape of a Spell brings together the work of ten emerging graduate artists, who transform landscapes, materials, memories and lived experiences into alternative ways of seeing. Through painting, sculpture, photography, film, textiles and illustration, the exhibition moves between the familiar and uncanny to create imagined worlds rooted in folklore, memory, local histories and deep time.
Across the exhibition, making becomes a kind of spell: a way to preserve, transform and reimagine the world. Rocks and caves, bodies and horses, streams and ponds, domestic spaces and abandoned places become sites where other possibilities can emerge. Through personal mythologies and parallel realities, the artists invite us to slow down, look differently and consider what might exist alongside the reality we know.
The exhibition features ten recent graduates from universities across the South Coast, selected as part of the Platform Graduate Award, an annual regional initiative led by Contemporary Visual Arts Network South East (CVAN South East). Following their graduation from university, the artists are at a pivotal moment as they move from the studio and classroom into professional practice, with Platform providing an opportunity to develop their practices, reach new audiences, and make connections within the wider visual arts sector.
This year’s selected artists are Lucy Grant and Maisie Rose (Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton); Katherine Bouleau and Ana Carceller Córdoba (UCA Farnham); Kai Grizzle and Sian Chungh (Chhainguns) (Southampton Solent University); Lauren Rufford and Helena Jane (University of Portsmouth); and Phillippa Todd and Madeline Drake (Arts University Bournemouth). The graduates studied across Fine Art, Photography and Illustration, bringing their own unique approaches to making, materials and subject matter.
While each artist has a distinct practice, their work shares an interest in the ways we experience, remember and construct the world around us. Identity, memory and nature intertwine personal experience with wider socio-ecological concerns, creating a space where the everyday can become strange, magical or newly understood.
At the heart of The Shape of a Spell is an invitation to imagine differently: to find wonder in the familiar and look beyond what is immediately visible.
The Next Generation of Artists
The exhibition reflects Aspex’s longstanding commitment to nurturing creative talent from Portsmouth and the wider South Coast, creating opportunities for artists at the beginning of their professional artistic practice whilst championing new perspectives and artist voices.
Lucy Grant explores the overlooked awe of the natural world through painting, focusing on rocks and caves. Their practice experiments with line, colour and contrasting textures to explore the changing, malleable nature of the landscape. Maisie Rose explores the relationship between nature, the human body and experiences of vulnerability, using recurring imagery of horses, landscapes and the figure within her paintings.
Sian Chungh (Chhainguns) creates dreamlike compositions using montage and distorted perspective, exploring identity, inclusion and expectation through the experiences of women of colour. Kai Grizzle uses photography to explore liminal and abandoned spaces, creating atmospheric images that encourage viewers to look more closely at environments that might otherwise be overlooked.
Helena Jane draws on local history and the natural environment in an artists’ book inspired by Baffins Pond, bringing together memories, stories and observations of the Portsmouth landscape. Katherine Bouleau creates an immersive sculptural installation inspired by the interconnected life of a garden stream, imagining a speculative ecosystem inhabited by microbial life. Ana Carceller Córdoba explores emotional and psychological experiences through abstract sculpture, while Lauren Rufford uses film, VHS and cyanotype to explore femininity, memory and nostalgia.
Phillippa Todd works across video, photography, text and soft sculpture, exploring personal myths, landscape, folklore and ideas of home. Madeline Drake creates textile and soft sculpture installations using reclaimed flags, exploring immigration, prejudice, belonging and ideas of comfort and invitation.
Together, the artists offer audiences a chance to encounter new perspectives and approaches to contemporary art, reflecting the breadth of creative talent emerging across the South Coast.
Maya Brasington, Curator at Aspex Portsmouth, said: “The Platform Graduate Award is a critical opportunity for emerging artists that we at Aspex are thrilled to continue to support from the establishment of the award in 2012. This year's artists use their practices to imagine alternative realities which combine in an exhibition that is centered in hope for a better future”
The Shape of a Spell is on display at Aspex Portsmouth from Friday 18 September - Sunday 15 November 2026 and is free to visit.