Our Team
A cluster of artists, writers and inside scoopers
Oli Epp (Creator of PLOP / Founder)
Oli Epp (b. 1994) is a painter living and working in London. Deformed, quirky and exuberant figures inhabit Oli Epp’s canvas, often staged within theatrical settings. Easy to read at first glance, these hyper-dramatised characters reflect upon our complex relationship to technology and social media. Epp’s idiosyncratic aesthetic fuses realistically painted details in oil with graphic techniques in airbrush and linear masking.
Oli Epp’s recent solo exhibition includes: 'Souvenir’, Division Gallery, Montreal (2021); ‘Black Swan’, Semiose Galerie, Paris (2020); ‘Oxymoron’, Carl Kostyál Gallery, London (2020) ‘Contactless – Oli Epp’, Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles (2019) and ‘Oli Epp – Epiphanies’, Semiose Galerie, Paris (2018). Oli Epp was included into the following museums shows: ‘Link in Bio, Art After Social Media’, at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (2019) and ‘Friends and Friends of Friends’ which he co-curated at the Schlossmuseum in Linz, Austria (2020).
Links to his website and interview:
COB GALLERY (co-hOSTS)
Cob Studios was established in 2011 by gallerist Victoria Williams and playwright Polly Stenham. Initially conceived as an artistic project space, Cob Studios was occupied by writers, curators, designers and fine artists.
In 2016 Williams alongside curator Cassie Beadle, launched the full Cob Gallery programme that supports and represents new, emerging and mid career London-based talent in the visual arts.
Cob Gallery focuses their program on multi discipline, London based and emerging artistic talent. Continuing the original conception as an artist led project space, the gallery maintains a culture of close collaboration and mutual support between makers and curators, offering an inclusive and nourishing platform. Presenting a blend of debut, solo and collaborative exhibitions, the gallery hosts a diverse, provocative and distinctive programme of artistic activity.
rosalind davis (The gurus / tutors)
Rosalind Davis is an artist-curator and a graduate of The RCA (2005) and Chelsea College of Art (2003). As an artist Davis has exhibited nationally and internationally and has had a number of solo shows in London and over 100 group shows in her career.
Davis was the Curator at Collyer Bristow Gallery (2016-2020) and has curated over 30 exhibitions so far in her career. Davis has hosted a number of events for the gallery; for the Fine Art Group, The Mall Galleries, The Smithsonian, CAS, GAC and Sothebys.
Previous co-curatorial projects have been at Standpoint Gallery, Arthouse1, Geddes Gallery and with Zeitgeist Arts Projects an arts organisation Davis co-directed 2012-15 at Bond House Gallery (ASC) as well as Core Gallery 2010-12.
Davis is co-author of ‘What they didn’t teach you at art school’ and has written a number of articles for a-n and other publications. She lectures at universities, galleries and organisations across the country including the RCA, ICA, Camden Arts Centre, UAL and has been a mentor for a number of years.
Rosalind will be giving all of the artists a one hour tutorial about their work and ideas.
Hector Cammpbell (The gurus / tutors)
Hector Campbell is an art historian, curator and writer based in London.
His recent curatorial projects include Elliot Fox’s solo exhibition Idol Hands at Platform Southwark, group exhibitions Old Friends, New Friends and HOUSE §1 at Collective Ending HQ and RedivideЯ, a two-person exhibition of works by India Nielsen and Yulia Iosilzon.
Hector currently writes for a number of London-based galleries and select international clients, is a regular contributor to FAD Magazine amongst other publications, and also writes directly for numerous contemporary and emerging artists.
Hector has guest-lectured at Chelsea College of Arts and the University of Bristol, been a visiting tutor at Goldsmiths (University of London), featured on various panel discussions, hosted in-conversations evenings and events, and sat on the judging panel for several open calls or awards.
Finally, Hector is currently a founding member of Collective Ending HQ, a collectively run studio and gallery complex in Deptford, South East London.
Hector will be giving all of the artists a one hour tutorial about their work and ideas.
@campbell.hector
www.hector-campbell.com
Elizabeth Neilson (Special Guest)
Elizabeth is Director of the Zabludowicz Collection, overseeing the strategy, acquisitions, programme and commissions for one of the world’s most risk taking and ground-breaking contemporary art collections. She is also co-director of Pangaea Sculptors’ Centre and a Trustee of Hospital Rooms and has a particular interest and specialism in nurturing emerging artists and their practices. She completed an MA in Curating from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2005 and a BA in Art History and Women’s Studies from The University of East London in 2003.
As a special guest, Elizabeth will pop into the studios for a casual visit with the artists.
Jeremy levison (Advisory Board & Panel)
Jeremy Levison is a practising family and divorce lawyer of some 40 years' standing.
His great passion, however, is the art world (which he refuses to delineate as the "art market").
A keen collector, Jeremy now has over 500 paintings in his ever-expanding collection. His particular interest is in young, unknown artists, helping them at the beginning of their careers and following them as they emerge.
Jeremy was responsible in the 1980s for the creation of the Collyer-Bristow gallery which was formed in the offices of the eponymous law firm in order to connect emerging artists with otherwise redundant wall space.
He is currently the chairman of the Old Carthusian Art Society.
More recently he has opened his own gallery, namely the Bermondsey Project Space in London's trendy Bermondsey Street.
Aindrea emelife (Co-Founder) (Advisory Board & Panel)
Aindrea Emelife is a 27-year-old art critic, independent curator, art historian and presenter from London. Starting at The Courtauld Institute of Art, where she completed a BA in History of Art, she has quickly gone on to become a ground-breaking new voice in an art world otherwise steeped in tradition. Aindrea has featured in programming on Sky Arts and presented art films for such prestigious institutions as The Royal Academy of Arts, The Hepworth Wakefield Museum. She is currently working on her first two books, A Little History of Protest Art (Tate, 2022) and How Art Can Change The World: A Manifesto (Frances Lincoln, 2022)
Aindrea debuted her first column for the Financial Times aged 20 years old, and has been published widely and internationally, including articles in The Guardian, Vanity Fair, The Telegraph, BBC, GQ, Frieze, The Independent, BBC and ArtNet. She features regularly on podcasts, most recently Talk Art and The Art Newspaper Podcast and is dedicated to public speaking, usually pertaining to discussions of contemporary art, popularising art history and championing female, black or artists of colour.
Aindrea has delivered talks and lectures at UNESCO, Paul Mellon Center for British Art, The Times and Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, The Financial Times NextGen Festival, Courtauld Gallery, the Courtauld Institute of Art, the V&A Museum and the Association for Women Art Dealers.
In 2021, Aindrea was appointed to the Mayor of London's Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm.
Links to some of her articles:
BBC - How provocative art give historic palaces new life
The Guardian - 'She's a wild woman, she's a shaman': Nicki Minaj becomes a feminist art muse
MARCELLE JOSEPH (Advisory Board & Panel)
Marcelle Joseph is a London-based American independent curator, collector and founder of Marcelle Joseph Projects, a nomadic curatorial platform that has produced 38 exhibitions in the UK and the rest of Europe, featuring the work of over 200 international artists, since its founding in 2011.
Joseph's expertise is in early career artists based in the UK, in particular, female-identifying and non-binary artists, and has an academic specialisation in feminist art practice after completing an MA in Art History with Distinction from Birkbeck, University of London. In 2013, she executive edited ‘Korean Art: The Power of Now’ (Thames & Hudson), a survey of the contemporary
art scene in South Korea. Additionally, Joseph is a trustee of Matt’s Gallery, London and served on the jury of the 2017-2019 Max Mara Art Prize for Women, in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery and Collezione Maramotti, and the Mother Art Prize 2018.
She also collects artworks by female-identifying artists under the collecting partnership, GIRLPOWER Collection, as well as more generally as part of the Marcelle Joseph Collection. Throughout 2020, Joseph has acted as Curatorial Consultant for Lychee One, a commercial gallery located in East London.
Claus Busch Risvig (Advisory Board & Panel)
Claus Busch Risvig is a proud collector and supporter of emerging artists because, as he says, “it takes more investigative work to find them”. Always on the lookout for new talent, he is regularly seen at international art fairs and is very active online, where he shares art discoveries with his many followers on Instagram. Buying with his girlfriend, Risvig has amassed one of the most important collections of the work of emerging artists in Denmark, with a focus on paintings and works on paper.
In 2016, Risvig was a curator at the first edition of CODE, Scandinavia’s only international art fair. In 2018, Risvig was on Apollo Magazines 40 under 40 list of the most inspirational young people in the European art world. In 2017 and 2018 parts the Bech Risvig Collection was exhibited at public spaces in Denmark.
Bech Risvig Collection has donated work to ARoS Aarhus Art Museum and HEART Herning Museum Of Contemporary Art.