London Gallery Weekend: Sunday Guide | East London

We are a few days away from the launch of the first-ever edition of the London Gallery Weekend. How exciting is that? 

This is our last guide in a mini-series of tours that highlight the best exhibitions happening throughout the weekend in each geographical area of London. We will now focus on East London, the highlighted area for Sunday the 6th of June. 

Our first stop is Victoria Miro Gallery. Let’s go!

1. Victoria Miro Gallery

16 Wharf Road

London N1 7RW

Sunday morning, and you have a beautiful, exciting day ahead. We are starting this gallery-crawl at Victoria Miro Gallery to see “Chantal Joffe: Story”. This exhibition brings us some of the most recent paintings of the artist's mother, Daryll, from an ongoing series that started thirty years ago. Emotionally rich and visually vibrant, “Story” explores the “complex relationship between mother and child” through various self-portraits. Joffe draws inspiration from real-life landscapes and family photographs to paint her canvases. These references make the paintings feel honest and nostalgic, allowing the viewer to develop a deeper connection with the depicted images. As Sunday for many people means “family day”, we think this is a great start to reflect on your familiar relationships and in particular the intimate relation of child and mother. 

Book your tickets here.

2. Seventeen Gallery

270-276 Kingsland Road

London E8 4DG

Following Victoria Miro Gallery, we head to Seventeen Gallery to see the exhibition “Rhys Coren – Solitary Social”. If that Sunday morning cappuccino and croissant did not help to wake your senses up, we bet this exhibition will. Full of wiggly and blocky shapes, bold and bright colours, “Solitary Social” resembles the Pop-Art feeling with a grainy feel. This emerging artist graduated from Royal Academy Schools in 2016, and he has been winning hearts since then. Coren is inspired by cartoons, sport and dance music culture. The inspiration is evident in the playfulness of his board paintings with different textural layers, loops and patterns. You will not regret this visit!

3.The Residence Gallery

229 Victoria Park Road

London E9 7HD

This is our last stop before stopping for lunch and a refreshing break by Victoria Park. The Residence Gallery presents us “Earthlings MMXXI”, a group show from the newest art collective that works across various mediums, exploring the environment as a whole. This exhibition examines the state of the planet and the impact of our footprint on it by presenting optimistic solutions for the future. The best part of this exhibition is that 10% of profits from the artworks will be donated to Cool Earth – “a UK charity that works alongside rainforest communities to halt deforestation and its impact on climate change”. 

Book your tickets here.

Before walking to our next exhibition, we think it’s time for a break. Take this opportunity to relax and discuss what you enjoyed the most about the artworks you have seen so far. Or, time to share these findings on your social media platforms- if you do share, remember to tag us (@artscapy). We would love to see your visits and hear about your impressions!

4.Nicoletti Contemporary

12A Vyner Street

London E2 9DG

Taking a break before this exhibition might be essential to ensure you can fully appreciate this exhibition at Nicoletti Contemporary. “Regime Selecting Devices (Environnement Foule #6) - Hugo Servanin” is a conceptual exhibition that explores the relationships “between organic bodies, analogue machines and digital technologies”. This is an excellent follow up to Chantal Joffe at Victoria Miro Gallery as it explores the thoughts and complexities of human relationships with our Digital Culture. In this exhibition, you will see a mix of sculptures, robots, computers and artificial intelligence. Although purely conceptual, this is a fun and intriguing exhibition to question our current relationship with screens and what that might mean in the future. 

5.Maureen Paley Gallery

60 Three Colts Lane

London E2 6GQ

We feel like this Sunday afternoon gallery-crawl is the perfect fun ending to this long art weekend. Maureen Paley Gallery brings us “Peter Hujar: Backstage”- a photography show that captures the backstage of “New York theatres and nightclubs during the 1970s and early 1980s”. This exhibition celebrates the much-loved drag culture throughout Hujar's lifetime. Hujar died of AIDS in 1987, but he is largely admired today because of his bohemian, glamorous and honest photographs of artists, musicians, writers, and performers in downtown New York. 

6. Mother’s Tankstation Limited

58 - 64 Three Colts Lane

London E2 6GP

A few steps away, you will see your last stop of the day, Mother’s Tankstation Limited. This last exhibition is full of figurative paintings with strong contrasts and pale tones. “Matt Bolinger: Collective Conscious” confronts the viewer with the emotional reality of failed dreams and promises, drawing critical commentaries on the failures of capitalism. Bolinger produces socially aware work that floats between fact and fiction, as most of his subjects come from dreams. Matt Bolinger is praised for his honest and raw way of capturing depressing, melancholic, gloomy emotions, and this exhibition is a reflection of that. But don’t let this put you off! We think this is a great way to end this gallery-crawl because this is an exhibition that will make you question your own life, and leave thoughts provoked. 

Book your tickets here. 

We hope you enjoyed our last article in the mini-series around the London Gallery Weekend. We hope this becomes London’s new yearly tradition to kick off the summer! The art world needs this, and we, art lovers, need it too. In case you missed our previous two articles on the Friday and Saturday highlights of the London Gallery Weekend, you can find them here: Friday for Central London galleries and Saturday for South London galleries.

Artscapy would love to see your pictures! So, if you visit these exhibitions, make sure you share them with us using the hashtag #ArtscapyLondon on your social media.

Our last note is not to forget to book your slots for each exhibition ahead of time. We are still in Covid times, and booking is, therefore, a requirement for most galleries. Find the links throughout the article to book your favourite exhibitions. 

Have fun!

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