Jame St Findlay: Harmony
1st September, 2025 – 28th of September, 2025
Perrotin London, Claridge’s
Brook Street, London W1K 4HR
Claridge’s and the Royal Academy Schools present Harmony, a major new commission by Jame St Findlay, exploring systems, paranoia and modern life.
Claridge’s, in partnership with the Royal Academy Schools, has announced details of Harmony, a new commission by Jame St Findlay, winner of the 2024 Claridge’s Royal Academy Schools Art Prize. The exhibition will run from 1 to 28 September in the former Claridge’s ArtSpace in Mayfair, now home to Perrotin London. The gallery is making the venue available as part of its continuing collaboration with the hotel.
Now in its second year, the Claridge’s Royal Academy Schools Art Prize offers £30,000 and the chance to stage a solo exhibition in London, supporting emerging artists at a decisive point in their careers. St Findlay was chosen by the judges, artists Ryan Gander RA and Oona Grimes RA.
Courtesy of the artist
A recent graduate of the Royal Academy Schools, St Findlay had already gained attention with solo exhibitions at Lucas Gallery, Glasshouse Projects at Gathering London and Celine Gallery in Glasgow. Their work was also included in New Contemporaries 2023, with appearances at The Grundy in Blackpool, Hull, and Camden Art Centre in London.
Working across film, sound, sculpture and image, St Findlay creates installations that transform their settings into theatrical, immersive environments. Humour and melodrama recur as strategies for confronting darker themes, while ideas of collapse and instability serve as touchstones. From a queer perspective, the artist interrogates assumptions of normality, stretching and distorting them until they fray.
Harmony takes its cue from the “mono-pine” — a mobile phone mast disguised as a tree. The project examines the hidden systems and routines that govern daily life, along with the discomfort that arises from attempts at over-optimisation. The installation employs the trappings of corporate order — filing boxes, suit jackets, business jargon — only to show them unravel, exposing the fragility of control.
At its centre is a new film that follows a “targeted individual,” a figure convinced of being subject to covert surveillance or sonic attack. The narrative, drawn from a growing online subculture, probes contemporary paranoia, ritualised coping mechanisms and the blurred edges between fact and conspiracy. Music, performance and escapist desire are woven into the work’s uneasy fabric.
Courtesy of the artist
Claridge’s and the Royal Academy Schools, both longstanding fixtures in Mayfair, share a commitment to fostering creative practice. Their joint prize addresses the pressures of rising tuition fees and studio costs that threaten to stifle new artistic voices in London. The first recipient, Daria Blum, has since shown work at Tate Modern, underlining the award’s potential to propel careers.
The third winner of the Claridge’s Royal Academy Schools Art Prize will be selected by a panel of judges during the RA Schools Show 2025 and will be announced at an event at Claridge’s on Tuesday 30 September 2025.
Jame St Findlay: Harmony opens on the 1st of September, 2025 until the 28th of September, 2025 at Perrotin London, Claridge’s
©2025 Jame St Findlay, Claridge’s
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