Curated by the Axis Team

Julian Lister, Membership Producer

I've known Pippa for a number of years and have had the pleasure of documenting her work and exhibitions during that time. This particular piece was part of her large-scale solo exhibition 'Four-Fold Reverie' at Pink in Stockport in 2025.

What I like about Eason's work is the way that it's staged, and the thought that goes into where and how the work is placed within the space. The plinths and platforms the sculptures sit upon become part of the work itself, creating a fully immersive experience that invite the viewer to navigate different coloured topographies and encounter and consider each piece equally.

The rich, colourful glazes applied to the ceramics in a delicate, painterly fashion hint at an artist having fun and enjoying the process of making, whilst at the same time investigating and embodying themes of mental health, vulnerability and resilience.

It also makes it more interesting to photograph as it offers a myriad of vantage points and compositional opportunities.

Daniela Liberati, Coordinator

I was instantly captured by the light in this photo. It has an almost neo-noir feel that sets up an interesting mood for further investigation.

There’s so much this picture evokes for me: intimacy, secrets, trust (or lack of) all wrapped in one of the most mundane and real settings - the market. The place that for centuries was somewhere where material goods and human stories have been exchanged in equal measure.

Tegen’s shot manages to capture a sense of nostalgia in those spaces that have been integral to my childhood and my growing up which are now sadly threatened by a rapidly digitised world.

The subjects, so deep in their conversation, don’t seem to notice the photographer’s presence. As viewers we are allowed in, to observe and be part of that moment, imagining and almost hearing what has been privately exchanged in this special space.

Paisley Randell Shillabeer, Communications Producer

Hair is a potent material, carrying traces of trauma, love and loss; its shedding offering both a physical and symbolic act of release. There is something akin to spinning gold from straw in this repetitive gesture - a quiet alchemy that imbues the work with a sense of sullen magic and nostalgia, even as deep loss remains woven through its threads.

Emma Copley, Community Producer

Delicate paintings and subtle colours that not only beautifully represent the plants they depict but are painted using pigments made from the plants. It's hard to imagine seeing this piece without the small terracotta dishes containing dry pigments handmade by Mansi sitting below them on a small wooden plinth. This is how the piece 'Rooted in the Land. Notes From an Urban Landscape' was displayed in an exhibition I took part in with Mansi in March this year at Sol Foundry in Cambridgeshire. Looking up at the paintings on the wall and down at the dishes of loose pigment I noticed connections in the colour and was tempted to touch the powder. 

I am looking forward to visiting Mansi's studio this autumn to see up close how she makes pigment and hope to test out painting with some myself!

Harlan Whittingham, Artist Development and Commissions Producer

I really like Iain Andrews use of abstraction to complicate narrative and didacticism within painting. In this case, these reflections appear to wrestle within a religious moral framework without becoming preachy. Gehenna (Honey Cakes) reflects on vice in a way that is simultaneously seductive and scary, like impulsive behaviour, it appeals more to the material and inexplicable than the rational and clear.

Lucy Wright, Deputy Director

I find Olivia Hicks' work so dreamy, so immersive, so otherworldly yet also deeply familiar, like something from childhood. With a limited colour palette, 'Human Mountains' reveals a landscape alive with feeling and history, plants bowed under the weight of their own lush fecundity while a single shoot bursts forth from the belly of a figure crabbed on the horizon. Symbols and structures whose meaning the viewer cannot quite place suggest the workings of wonder and devotion. Take me there!

Referencing the name astronomers gave to the first image produced by a new telescope, 'First Light' by Chris Wilson looks deliciously tactile—rough, organic scumble polished to a gold mirror shine, a long bar of bronze. It demands to be picked up and wielded—with even an indent for the palm. Could it have fallen to earth from a passing spaceship, or was it dug up in the ruins of some ancient civilisation?