Artist: Magdalena Skupinska

Maximillian William presents a solo exhibition by Magdalena Skupinska, whose practice takes shape through the slow and meditative work of gathering, mixing, and layering - altered by time, steeped in the rhythms of growth and decay, and shaped by the shifting nature of colour. Her works do not settle into stillness, but emerge from the earth, shaped by the elements, taking pigment and texture from nature’s own store.

The exhibition is accompanied by a text from writer and academic Rebecca May Johnson, whose words follow the rhythms of gathering, preparing, and making. She traces Skupinska’s engagement with plants and pigments back to the traditions of food-making - the time-honoured work of harvesting by hand, of transforming what is fleeting into what lingers. A folk tale of colour and sustenance, of painting as a form of preservation and ritual.

Rebecca May Johnson is a writer and academic whose writing brings critical practices into everyday life. She has written reviews and features for Fantastic Man, Times Literary Supplement, The Happy Reader, LRB online, Financial Times, Guardian, and AnOther, among others. She also uses online publishing to conduct stylistic experiments: her essay "I Dream of Canteens" was published via TinyLetter and gained widespread acclaim, winning "The Browser" prize for the best piece on the internet in April 2019. Her anonymous waitressing series was voted in the Observer Food Monthly "Top 50" of 2018. She was finalist in the "Young British Foodies" writing prize judged by Marina O'Loughlin and Yotam Ottolenghi for writing published on her site Dinner Document. Small Fires is her first book.