Shape and Form | Contemporary British Works: 7 Piccadilly Arcade

Shape & Form brings together a considered selection of contemporary British works that foreground structure, colour, rhythm, and spatial intelligence. The exhibition traces a lineage from post-war abstraction and conceptual clarity through to younger contemporary practices, revealing how form continues to be a central language in British art.

 

At the core of the presentation are works by Bridget Riley, David Hockney, Clyde Hopkins, Michael Craig-Martin, and Gillian Ayres. Each artist approaches form from a distinct position. Riley's optical precision activates perception itself, while Hockney's works explore line, colour, and modern technologies as tools for re-seeing the natural world. Hopkins' paintings sit between abstraction and landscape, using structure and surface to evoke memory and place. Craig-Martin reduces objects to their essential visual syntax, and Ayres' expansive canvases push colour and gesture to expressive extremes.

 

These established figures are shown alongside a small group of younger contemporary artists whose practices extend and challenge this legacy. Their works engage with form through new materials, digital processes, and personal narratives, demonstrating how contemporary British art continues to evolve while remaining rooted in formal experimentation.

 

Together, the exhibition presents a dialogue across generations, where shape and form are not static concerns but living, dynamic forces that continue to define the visual language of British art today.