‘Faux Pas’, Alison Hand & Julian Wild

HS Projects is delighted to present Faux Pas, an exhibition by the artists Alison Hand and Julian Wild which represents a year’s worth of conversations and making.

Hand and Wild live and work in the port town of Newhaven in East Sussex. Together there they run Cement, a studio complex and art school where they teach contemporary art practice through thinking and making. At the foot of the south Downs and on the edge of the sea, Newhaven should be picturesque: it is both beautiful, harsh, busy, bright, wild and industrial all at the same time. This energy is reflected in the work of Hand and Wild.

Their artwork connects through form, colour and theme: piles of materials stack up in heaps, dialogues appear between surface, object, and illusion. Ribbons articulate through space, bright neon pinks rub up against Victorian mint greens, all reflecting uncertainty and the de-stabilised world that we live in. There is chaos, reflection and an investigation of the built environment. In a post-truth world, the works in the exhibition question what is real or created, all leaving the viewer uncertain of what is true or faux.

Wild has created sculptures that expressively respond to found objects such as girders and a Victorian mangle. Hard metal forms are squashed and bent and pressed by these objects in slapstick events. These cartoon-like happenings are playful and detached from reality with their pop colours and polished surfaces. The violence of action is hidden within.

Hand has created several large paintings, including a central diptych, that contain multiple vignettes and painterly tropes. Broad, seemingly abstract strokes turn into hazard tape and neon, whilst piles of tyres and barbed wire meld into romantic vistas. There is a dialogue between escapism and presence, and between painting histories.

Alison Hand’s exhibitions include: Farley’s House and Gallery, Sussex (solo forthcoming); Annual Leave, Park Street Gallery, London; Folklore, BN9 Studios, Marine Workshops, East Sussex; Derelict, Uncovered Collective, Safehouse, London; Ruin, Way Out East Gallery, London; The Speed of Thought. Hand was Artist in Residence for Kings College London Philosophy Department on the Dreams and Wakeful Consciousness Research Project. Awards for her painting include the Basil Alkazzi Scholarship Award; the Painters’ and Stainers’ Gordon Luton Award; and the Stevenson Harwood Award.

Julian Wild’s solo exhibitions include: Newlands House (current); Leighton House Museum; Canary Wharf & Modern Art Oxford; Chatsworth House (Sotheby’s); Sculpture in the City. Wild’s commissions include: The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail; The University of Oxford; Cass Sculpture Foundation; Radley College; Jerwood Sculpture Park; The Lightbox Gallery. In 2024 Wild attended an Albers Foundation residency at Thread, Senegal. He was awarded The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Arts club Trust Studio Bursary from 2009-2012. In 2005 Wild was a finalist in the Jerwood Sculpture Prize and won the Millfield Sculpture Prize. He was Vice-president of The Royal Society of Sculptors from 2015-2019.

Faux Pas is at Howick Place from June 2026 to December 2026.