August Sundays 03/08
This week brings together four artists whose practices explore the language of segmentation, composition, and framing, inviting viewers to engage with the layered structures within their work.
Ben Grosse-Johannboecke
Zachary Merle
Frans Nybacka
Anousha Salehi
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Ben Grosse-Johannboecke
Looking at image consumption in the contemporary era, Ben Grosse-Johannboecke's works engage with the cycle of the “poor image” - images that loose resolution and context through constant circulation and appropriation. In 'Falling Blue Leaves' and 'Change or Perish', imagery of satellite footage from areas of socio-political conflict have been layered to the point of erosion. In “Change or Perish”, a metal cage constructs a barrier between the viewer, obscuring the last traces of the image below, whilst 'Falling Blue Leaves' uses what Grosse-Johannboacke calls pulses; painted repeated vertical stripes that obscure the image underneath.
Ben Grosse-Johannboecke (b.2002, Melle, Germany) recently completed his BA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL, London (2024). Selected group exhibitions include Dérèglement des Sens, Purist Gallery, London (2025); Seem Both Distant and So Close, Warbling Collective, London (2025); Hypha Studios x Dispensary, Wrexham (2024); LAAF_SetTheory, Łódź, Poland (2024); MAP 11, Mamut Art Project, Istanbul (2024); Perspectives 2024, CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea (2024); Reimagined Ruins, Safehouse 1 and 2, London (2024). He was selected for a forthcoming residency at Pracownie Litery I Ynaklu, Łódź, Poland (2025), and was featured in Artists to Watch 2025, curated by Lusia Seipp for ArtConnect.
Ben Grosse-Johannboecke
Change or Perish, 2025
Image transfer, staples and cotton on wood with aluminium
wire
48 x 70cm
Ben Grosse-Johannboecke
Falling Blue Leaves, 2024
Oil, image transfer, staples, cotton on wood
26 x 62cm
Zachary Merle
Driven by the distortion of personal memories, Zachary Merle explores memory not as a fixed archive, but as an untrustworthy space which is continually vulnerable to self rewriting and erasure, shaped by a lifelong engagement with epilepsy. Each image transfer acts as an echo of its previous self, not the entire narrative but a faint indication. 'Traces of a Gaze III' and 'Passer By II' draw imagery from family archives. Though grounded in personal material, the memories they reference often feel strangely unfamiliar upon reflection, a tension that lies at the core of Merle’s practice.
Zachary Merle (b.1997, Hertfordshire, UK) lives and works in London. He completed his BA in Fine Art at Bath Spa University (2021), followed by an artist residency at Emerge, Bath (2021–2023). Selected group exhibitions include Paradoxical Field: Prelude I, Purist Gallery, London (2025); Only Shallow, Lee Scully x TwoPlusTwo, London (2025); Full Disclosure, D Contemporary, London (2025); In The Corner Of My Eye, Fresh Salad x Koppel Collective, London (2024).
Zachary Merle
Traces of a Gaze III, 2025
Solvent transfers on fabric with artist frame
82 x 47cm
Zachary Merle
Passer By II, 2025
Solvent transfer and sewn fabric with artist frame
22 x 22 cm
Frans Nybacka
Frans Nybacka’s practice centres on world-building through painting. 'Last Man Standing' and 'Mouse Mansion' are part of a broader series in which he examines a morally and environmentally deteriorating world through the eyes of an innocent child. In this imagined reality, places and objects are personified, rendered with empathy and emotional presence. Nybacka’s serial approach allows him to explore the inner lives of spaces, objects, and speculative histories, repurposing overlooked found imagery as fragments of a larger narrative. His works often resemble a loose storyboard or a series of video game stills, inviting viewers to connect the dots and construct their own ideas within the world he presents.
Frans Nybacka (b.1993, Kangasala, Finland) lives and works in Helsinki. Selected solo exhibitions include Crisis Galore, tm•galleria, Helsinki (2025); Blue Steel, Vallilan Panimon Galleria, Helsinki (2025); Borrowed Time, Poriginal Gallery, Pori Art Museum, Pori (2024); Wind is Rising, Galleria Loisti, Helsinki (2024); Goblin Geology, Troll Romance, Galleria Huuto, Helsinki (2023). Recent group exhibitions include Objects of Scorn, Narthex Gallery, Chicago (2025); Riga Contemporary Art Fair, Hanzas Perons, Riga (2025); Taidehaistelija Biennaali, Galleria Loisti, Helsinki (2025); Special Zine Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2023). His work was acquired by the Finnish National Gallery / State Art Deposit Collection (2024).
Frans Nybacka
Mouse Mansion, 2025
Oil on linen, pine frame
48 x 37 cm
Frans Nybacka
Last Man Standing, 2025
Oil on linen, pine frame
48 x 37cm
Anousha Salehi
'Roulette' excavates the connection between the scientific and the symbolic, the material and the metaphysical. Exploring the harmony between experience and science in Persia, Anousha Salehi's sculptures are embedded within a language of geometry and game-play, extending a tradition of inquiry that positions the pursuit of knowledge alongside abstracted modes of quantification.
Anousha Salehi (b.2001, Coventry, UK) lives and works in London. She recently graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, London (2025), where she was awarded the UCL East Provost Prize 2025. Recent group exhibitions include Les Diplomates, Gnossienne Gallery, London (2025).
Anousha Salehi
Roulette, 2025
MDF, plywood, ebony and maple veneer, stainless steel, acrylic paint
140 x 140 x 7cm