Project Native Informant

During Frieze Art Fair 2025 week, Sophia Al-Maria will be involved in two major projects. Winner of the 2025 Frieze London Artist Award, Al-Maria will debut Wall-Based Work, a drop-down comedy club’ that will see the artist perform daily live stand-up sets throughout the duration of Frieze London. The ‘drop-down’ refers to a projected brick-wall backdrop which will descend during her performances. Comedy clubs are notoriously unglamorous in their appointments, but this blank brick wall has other meanings. It is unfinished, lacking a surface or decoration. It suggests a firing squad, alluding to the implied challenge to the comic from their audience to be funny or they will ‘die’ on stage. Above all, it is the antithesis of what you expect at an international art fair. It’s not even an actual wall. Comedians talk about their ‘material’; Al-Maria’s piece suggests that an artist’s material can have a similarly evanescent quality: it exists, but it has no meaning or reality until it is presented to an audience. The ‘commons’ is that dimension of sharing, but that sharing can be antagonistic, adversarial, even. ‘It’s the last honest art form,’ says Al-Maria. ‘Stand-up requires presence.’ As AI looms over the notion of individual creativity, the panic-inducing bareness of the comedy-club stage is a last bastion of authenticity. Al-Maria may be performing on her own, but the experience is a collective one, tapping into shared fears of exposure, vulnerability and creative openness. Al-Maria will also participate in the group exhibition Paradigm Shift presented by 180 Studios. Opening Wednesday 15 October 2025, Paradigm Shift will transform 180 Strand’s vast subterranean spaces with a landmark exhibition spanning the most acclaimed moving image works from the 1970s to today, drawing on avant-garde cinema, television, music video, performance, fashion, gaming, and internet culture. Image 1: Sophia Al-Maria. Photo by Vasso Vu Image 2: Sophia Al-Maria Tiger Strike Red, 2022 Single-channel HD video 23 mins 03 secs Edition of 3 and 2 AP #sophiaalmaria #projectnativeinformant #friezeartfair #180studios

Juliana Huxtable participates in the group exhibition Dance of Resistance @ Center for Visual Art, Denver August 15 – October 25, 2025. Dance of Resistance features artists who voice the stories of their communities through figural works of art, exploring histories and offering pathways to healing and empowerment. Each artist has an artistic practice rooted in their LGBTQ+ identity. Approaching their work from unique viewpoints, they employ varied media to present themes from lived experience and imagined futures. The artists unite in using their art as a means of activism, visually conveying issues important to themselves and their communities. They amplify silenced voices, expose myths, and promote a dialogue that invites reflection on the human experience, illuminating the power of art to inspire change and foster understanding in our diverse world. These works primarily include figural depictions, placing a queer bodily presence firmly in the spotlight. @julianahuxtable @cva_msudenver Image: Juliana Huxtable IGUANA GLAM, 2024 Triptych acrylic on printed canvas and plastic button Each: 153 x 114 x 4.5 cm 60 1/4 x 44 7/8 x 1 3/4 in Total: 153 x 360 x 4.5 cm 60 1/4 x 141 3/4 x 1 3/4 in #julianahuxtable #danceofresistance #cvadenver #projectnativeinformant

Flo Brooks and Juliana Huxtable participate in the group exhibition Voyager 2000: Worldbeing & Wonder? @ First Site, Colchester 19 July - Sunday 05 October 2025. Voyager 2000: Worldbeing & Wonder invites you on a sensory, emotional, and digital journey through art, technology, and the world we build online. It is shaped by the conversations and experiences of autistic and disabled people from SEN schools, support groups, video games, and other online spaces. Through video art, animation, sculpture, paintings, drawings, photography, and more, this exhibition explores how art and technology, from TV to Tumblr, video games to dating apps, have shaped lives, identity, intimacy, and imagination. @flobrooks @julianahuxtable @firstsitecolchester Image 1: Flo Brooks How to find a soul a home, 2023 Acrylic on linen, appliqué on found material and metal 204 x 173 x 1 cm Image 2: Juliana Huxtable ANTHROPOD, 2023 Acrylic on printed canvas and plastic button Each: 153 x 114 x 4.5 cm Total: 153 x 360 x 4.5 cm #flobrooks #julianajuxtable #voyager2000 #firstsitecolchester #projectnativeinformant

Images of Georgie Nettell’s brilliant solo exhibition tiled Balance is a Complex Thing currently @ Kunstverein Gartenhaus till 12 July 2025. At Airbus we pioneer sustainable aerospace for a safe and united world. In the current challenging operating environment, this purpose has never been more relevant. Aviation safeguards global peace and stability. It un- derpins the multilateralism, diplomacy and conflict resolution that many have taken for granted in the latter part of the 20th century. Around the world and around the clock, we connect global leaders in business, government and corporate affairs. By opening borders and fostering networks, our products enable international stability and prosperity, helping to preserve economies, friendships and understanding between nations. Georgie Nettell (1984, Bedford, England) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include: If you don’t know this then you haven’t been paying attention, Rubbish Bin, Berlin (2025); Isn’t It Beautiful, Reena Spaulings, New York (2024); The Rolex Market (with Gili Tal), Beau Travail, Stockholm (2024); I Wasn’t Expecting To Enjoy This and I’m Not, Project Native In- formant, London (2023); Do What You Love (with Nicolas Ceccaldi), CICCIO, New York (2023); Good (with Merlin Carpenter), Leech, Berlin (2023); Very Abstract Language System, Meow Gallery, Melbourne (2022); Reasons, Galerina, London (2022); Totalitarian Typeface II, Galerie Lars Friedrich, Berlin (2022); Pre War Abstraction, Project Native Informant, London (2020); VISUALS, (with Nicolas Ceccaldi), Select, Berlin (2020); The Vivid Present, Reena Spaulings, New York (2019); Every Lie has an Audience, Aesthetik01, Berlin (2019); Every Lie has an Audience, Pocke, Tokyo (2019). @great_area_ @kunstverein.gartenhaus Images courtesy of Kunstverein Gartenhaus. #georgienettell #kunstvereingartenhaus #projectnativeinformant

Sophia Al-Maria (@sxphix_xl_mxrix ) is the recipient of the 2025 Frieze London Artist Award. The award – in partnership with @formaartsmedia – gives an early- or mid-career artist the opportunity to realise an ambitious new commission at Frieze London. ⁠ ⁠ Al-Maria’s new commission, ‘Wall Based Work (a Trompe LOL)’, responds to this year’s theme of ‘future commons’. It will take the form of a ‘drop-down’ comedy show, performed live at the fair every day by the artist. Why comedy? ‘It’s the last honest art form,’ says Al-Maria. ‘Stand-up requires presence.’ As AI looms over the notion of individual creativity, the bare, panic-inducing comedy-club stage is the last bastion of white-knuckle personal realness. ⁠ ⁠ Hit the link in bio to read more. ⁠ ⁠ The Frieze London Artist Award is in partnership with: @formaartsmedia ⁠ ⁠ Global Lead Partner - @deutschebank @deutschebankart ⁠ ⁠ -⁠ ⁠ Images:⁠ ⁠ 1 & 2 - Sophia Al Maria, photo by Vasso Vu ⁠ ⁠ 3. Sophia Al-Maria, BEAST TYPE SONG, 2019. Single-channel HD video; 38 mins, 03 secs. Edition of 3 and 2 AP Photo: Copyright The Artist. Courtesy of the artist, Anna Lena Films and Project Native Informant, London ⁠ ⁠ 4. Detail view: Sophia Al-Maria, unpleasant feeling, 2022. Diptych c-type print, acrylic on acetate, found material, acrylic, bubble wrap, pigeon deterrent spikes, aluminium frame. Each: 59 x 32.5 x 9 cm (23 1/4 x 12 3/4 x 3 1/2 in) Courtesy of the artist and Project Native Informant, London⁠ ⁠ 5. Sophia Al-Maria, Mothership, 2017. Single-channel HD video; 02 mins, 48 secs. Edition of 3 and 2 AP Photo: Copyright The Artist ⁠ Courtesy of the artist and Project Native Informant, London ⁠ ⁠ 6. Sophia Al-Maria and Lydia Ourahmane, Grey Unpleasant Land (2024). Installation view at Spike Island, UK. Photograph by Rob Harris Courtesy of Spike Island ⁠

Last week for Anna Jung Sri’s gorgeous solo exhibition of new paintings, titled O love, how did you get here? The exhibition closes Saturday 5 July 2025. Dappled brushwork, delicate hues, and cloisonne-like textures dance across the surfaces of Anna Jung Seo’s portraits, still lives and landscapes. The London-based Korean painter is first and foremost a painter of life, both real and imagined. Seo primarily approaches her subjects in one of two ways: painting from observation or from literary sources. Life and its mysteries are abiding questions. Her compositions are always non-photographic, but based on the imprint of memory, and principally, on the act of painting itself. By stressing substance over verisimilitude, Seo allows multiple narratives to inhabit her work simultaneously. Seo deploys a wide-ranging vocabulary of colour, tone and mark-making to delineate psychological interludes at once familiar and uncanny but uniquely her own. The resulting paintings often have a sense of sensual wildness, as if Seo is wrestling with the messiness of life. @annajungseo Image: Anna Jung Seo With fireflies caress (Purple), 2025 Oil on linen 66 x 84 cm 26 x 33 1/8 in #annajungseo #projectnativeinformant

The last week for Sean Steadman’s brilliant solo exhibition of prints. Giant Atoms closes this Saturday 5 July 2025. In addition to the hand finished woodcut prints, Steadman has made a portfolio of five monochrome woodcuts pressed on Velin Arches paper. Giving the title to the exhibition. The five arresting woodcuts cross fertilize images of nature, futurism, and the archive. For Steadman, printmaking serves as his primary laboratory for generating ideas. The medium requires working semi-blind and back-to-front, offering less control than direct mediums like drawing or painting. He describes making these works as “trying to turn falling snow into cursive script”—chaotic experimentation involving guessing, hoping and testing to achieve the right combination of colour and marks. Steadman has written an accompanying text to this exhibition that considers the tradition of romanticism and its relevance in thinking about art today. It details how the artist shares the romantic view that art is a way of connecting with the vast, incomprehensible forces of nature that our everyday perception can’t fully grasp, and that this pursuit should be replenished as a central concern for artists. This exhibition suggests a rejuvenated and updated expressionist or romantic-type perspective is appropriate to digest the complexity and scale and chaos of today. @sean.steadman Images 1-6: Sean Steadman GIANT ATOMS, 2025 A portfolio of five Woodcuts on Velin Arches paper Each: 38 x 50 cm 15 x 19 3/4 in #seansteadman #giantatoms #projectnativeinformant

Juliana Huxtable participates in the group exhibition These Branching Moments @ Fomu Antwerp opening this weekend till 28 September 2025. Through photography and video, these artists explore questions of belonging and how it takes shape in today’s world: Where can we feel safe and find community? How and where can we express ourselves authentically? Moving between art and music, day and night, the participating artists envision temporary worlds that suspend the micro- and macro-aggressions of everyday life. The exhibition finds refuge in the night as a space for experimentation, freedom, and imagination, with the artists resisting a world that increasingly imposes control. They do this by creating elusive, ever-changing moments where complexity and mystery are allowed to exist. Featuring contributions from diverse communities – from experimental electronic musicians and queer strippers of colour to performance artists and Caribbean youth at mass gatherings – the exhibition reveals how like-mindedness, freedom, and solidarity can be found in the shadow zones of normative society. Together with curator Evelyn Simons and inspired by the artists’ work, the designers of Espace Aygo have conceived a sensorial and immersive scenography for the exhibition, while Atelier Brenda is responsible for the graphic design. Step into a world where art and music cross-pollinate, and where the night is celebrated as fertile ground for resistance and renewal. @julianahuxtable @evelyn_simons @fomuantwerp Image: Juliana Huxtable PANGS, 2024 Acrylic and vinyl stickers on printed canvas 152 x 114.6 x 4 cm 59 7/8 x 45 1/8 x 1 5/8 in #julianahuxtable #thesebranchingmoments #fomuantwerp #evelynsimons #projectnativeinformant

Project Native Informant presents GIANT ATOMS, the sixth solo exhibition by British artist Sean Steadman, running till 5 July 2025. Through painting, drawing and printmaking Steadman creates complex compositions through iterative processes informed by many threads of art history, and an interest in the natural sciences and technology. GIANT ATOMS features woodcut prints made this year using blended European and Japanese techniques. Each print is comprised of multiple layers, starting with a foundational wood block which is hand-printed using a barren, applying an ink made of starch paste and watercolour. This systematised yet hand-coloured process creates subtle unique variations in each print. Steadman views these works as bridging his painting and printmaking practices, achieving painterly marks and complexity of surface while maintaining the repeatability of composition from the underlying carved blocks. Labelling the origin of each work’s forms is difficult because they are worked on intuitively and iteratively, not from source material. However, animal and bird-like figures, spirals, lattices, and heads have absorbed a plethora of influences—occasional family resemblances to the pastoral, vague hints of Samuel Palmer, fragments of esoteric or medieval printmaking, futurism, and Japanese Ukiyo-e. For Steadman, printmaking serves as his primary laboratory for generating ideas. The medium requires working semi-blind and back-to-front, offering less control than direct mediums like drawing or painting. He describes making these works as “trying to turn falling snow into cursive script”—chaotic experimentation involving guessing, hoping and testing to achieve the right combination of colour and marks. Steadman has written an accompanying text to this exhibition that considers the tradition of romanticism and its relevance in thinking about art today. @sean.steadman Image: Sean Steadman Annunciation, 2025 Woodblock print with hand colouring in waterolour and ink on Awagami Shiramine paper 72 x 134.5 cm 28 3/8 x 53 in Edition of 10 plus 1 artist’s proof #seansteadman #projectnativeinformant

Anna Jung Seo’s second solo exhibition titled O love, how did you get here?, continues at PNI till 5 July 2025. Dappled brushwork, delicate hues, and cloisonne-like textures dance across the surfaces of Anna Jung Seo’s portraits, still lives and landscapes. The London-based Korean painter is first and foremost a painter of life, both real and imagined. Seo primarily approaches her subjects in one of two ways: painting from observation or from literary sources. Life and its mysteries are abiding questions. Her compositions are always non-photographic, but based on the imprint of memory, and principally, on the act of painting itself. By stressing substance over verisimilitude, Seo allows multiple narratives to inhabit her work simultaneously. Colour and shape fold into environment, dancing amid the density of freely applied oil paint. The resulting paintings often have a sense of sensual wildness, as if Seo is wrestling with the messiness of life. In her current exhibition, Seo revisits the same image through a number of paintings made over an extended period of time, asking if time itself changes perspective. In the series Your Nakedness, the artist came across some trees with oddly shaped humps and knots while walking in London; she was intrigued by their shape and how, over time, memory transforms what she actually saw. Certain curves or undulations are emphasised, while the texture and tone of the undulating branches shift as the memory recedes in time. @annajungseo Images 1-3: Anna Jung Seo Your Nakedness (Orange), 2024 Oil on linen 61 x 46 cm 24 x 18 1/8 #annajungseo #projectnativeinformant

Project Native Informant presents GIANT ATOMS, the sixth solo exhibition by British artist Sean Steadman, running till 5 July 2025. Through painting, drawing and printmaking Steadman creates complex compositions through iterative processes informed by many threads of art history, and an interest in the natural sciences and technology. GIANT ATOMS features woodcut prints made this year using blended European and Japanese techniques. Each print is comprised of multiple layers, starting with a foundational wood block which is hand-printed using a barren, applying an ink made of starch paste and watercolour. This systematised yet hand-coloured process creates subtle unique variations in each print. Steadman views these works as bridging his painting and printmaking practices, achieving painterly marks and complexity of surface while maintaining the repeatability of composition from the underlying carved blocks. Labelling the origin of each work’s forms is difficult because they are worked on intuitively and iteratively, not from source material. However, animal and bird-like figures, spirals, lattices, and heads have absorbed a plethora of influences—occasional family resemblances to the pastoral, vague hints of Samuel Palmer, fragments of esoteric or medieval printmaking, futurism, and Japanese Ukiyo-e. For Steadman, printmaking serves as his primary laboratory for generating ideas. The medium requires working semi-blind and back-to-front, offering less control than direct mediums like drawing or painting. He describes making these works as “trying to turn falling snow into cursive script”—chaotic experimentation involving guessing, hoping and testing to achieve the right combination of colour and marks. Steadman has written an accompanying text to this exhibition that considers the tradition of romanticism and its relevance in thinking about art today. @sean.steadman Image: Sean Steadman Undergrowth, 2024 Woodblock print with hand colouring in waterolour and ink on Awagami Shiramine paper 118 x 145.5 cm 46 1/2 x 57 1/4 in Edition of 5 plus 1 artist’s proof #seansteadman #giantatoms #projectnativeinformant

Anna Jung Seo’s second solo exhibition titled O love, how did you get here?, continues at PNI till 5 July 2025. Dappled brushwork, delicate hues, and cloisonne-like textures dance across the surfaces of Anna Jung Seo’s portraits, still lives and landscapes. The London-based Korean painter is first and foremost a painter of life, both real and imagined. Seo primarily approaches her subjects in one of two ways: painting from observation or from literary sources. Life and its mysteries are abiding questions. Her compositions are always non-photographic, but based on the imprint of memory, and principally, on the act of painting itself. By stressing substance over verisimilitude, Seo allows multiple narratives to inhabit her work simultaneously. Colour and shape fold into environment, dancing amid the density of freely applied oil paint. The resulting paintings often have a sense of sensual wildness, as if Seo is wrestling with the messiness of life. In her current exhibition, Seo revisits the same image through a number of paintings made over an extended period of time, asking if time itself changes perspective. The double act of the Old painter’s Nightmare and the Old painter’s sweet dream (2025) are loosely based on reading Emile Zola’s The Masterpiece (1886). A storey of an old painter’s passion for painting and strong drive for success mixed with fear of failure, the image is rendered twice. His eyes are closed, the legs exposed up top crotch level, and a blanket over his chest and arms is rendered in soft cream or pink. The viewpoint is from above, suggestive of both spectator and nurse, while the background is indicative of emotional vulnerability. Here Seo’s mastery in her craft is displayed in a whirlwind of indigos and magentas. Figures and other lifeforms stir and recede into aqueous grounds of patterned colour. Foreground and background, negative and positive space, work in tandem to create two arresting images. @annajungseo Images 1-2 Old painter’s Nightmare, 2025 Oil on paper on board 18 x 26 cm 7 1/8 x 10 1/4 in Images 3-4 Old painter’s sweet dream, 2025 Oil on paper on board 18 x 26 cm 7 1/8 x 10 1/4 in #annajungseo #projectnativeinformant