At Miart Gallery London, an exhibition of international voices explores memory, transformation, and the meaning of beginnings
Origins II
Featured artists; Çağlar Tağcı, Johnathan Schultz, Kadir Akyol, Lars Beusker, Selda Güneş and Thannyo De Freitas.
Miart Gallery London
31-32 St James’s Street
London
SW1A 1HD
Miart Gallery London opens a new chapter with Origins II, a group exhibition that seeks to reframe the very notion of “origin.” Opening on 4 October, the show arrives during a period of expansion and recognition for the gallery, which in 2025 was named Gallery of the Year by the Innovation & Excellence Awards for the second year in succession.
The distinction, spanning 21 countries, adds to a growing roster of accolades. Last year, Miart was named Best Gallery in the UK by the World Art Awards and Gallery of the Year by Corporate LiveWire. In 2025, the gallery also expanded internationally, opening two new spaces in Istanbul with landmark exhibitions of Lorenzo Quinn’s monumental sculptures.
“Origins II is less about locating a single beginning than about mapping the cycles of memory, inheritance, and transformation that shape both art and life,” said Irem Deniz, the gallery’s founder and director, who curated the exhibition.
Courtesy of Miart Gallery
Origins II follows Origins I, continuing a curatorial dialogue while shifting the emphasis. Where the first exhibition explored cultural, spiritual and personal genesis, the second examines how foundations are reshaped, reformed and transformed. The exhibition brings together six artists — Çağlar Tağcı, Johnathan Schultz, Kadir Akyol, Lars Beusker, Selda Güneş and Thannyo De Freitas — whose work reflects diverse geographies and approaches, from South Africa and Germany to Turkey, Panama and Cuba. Themes of layered origins, material as memory, and tensions in balance underpin the show, moving from singular narratives towards multi-temporal dialogues, and juxtaposing fragility with resilience, tradition with innovation, and chaos with order.
Among the artists, South African-born Johnathan Schultz presents gilded poppy compositions on 23k gold leaf backgrounds, where growth and decay intertwine. Known for Out of the Darkness, a diamond-studded reimagining of Nelson Mandela’s fingerprint, Schultz treats precious metals not as ornament but as vessels of meaning — sacred yet flawed, enduring yet fragile. In 2025, he staged his first major solo exhibition in South Africa, Lasting Impressions: Tracing Identity & Resilience, in Cape Town. German photographer Lars Beusker contributes intimate black-and-white portraits of wild animals, capturing dignity and immediacy by positioning himself within striking distance of his subjects.
His series Outlast won Nature Photographer of the Year at the 2022 International Photography Awards in New York. Panamanian artist Thannyo De Freitas offers serene, symbolic landscapes of floating islands and guayacán trees, blending photographic precision with ethereal atmospheres while addressing deforestation and creating imagined sanctuaries.
Courtesy of Miart Gallery
From Turkey, Kadir Akyol presents oil-on-fabric portraits merging Eastern ornamentation with Western iconography, grounding contemporary identity in traditional textiles and suggesting cultural memory as a continual rewriting. Fellow Turkish artist Çağlar Tağcı takes inspiration from nebulae and cosmic creation, using dripping and splattering techniques to suggest origin as sensation rather than definition, balancing chaos with order. Selda Güneş, also from Turkey, draws on geometry and architecture, using light and shadow to transform static forms into dynamic experiences that embody origins as processes of flux.
For Deniz, Origins II reflects Miart Gallery’s broader mission to bridge artistic traditions across geographies. Past curatorial projects have included works by Banksy, Auguste Rodin, Lorenzo Quinn, Wolfgang Stiller and Beusker. By placing gilded symbolism beside cosmic abstraction, ethereal landscapes beside textile-based portraiture, the exhibition creates what Deniz describes as “a space where tradition and innovation are held in productive tension.”
Ultimately, the exhibition serves as a meditation on transformation itself: fragility becoming resilience, and beginnings unfolding into new forms. In that sense, Origins II mirrors the gallery’s own trajectory — rooted in London yet resonating across continents, inviting audiences into an encounter that is both personal and universal.
Origins II Opens on 4th October, 2025 at Miart Gallery London
©2025 Miart Gallery
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