Since opening Gallery 286 in 1998, I have tried to have at least one exhibition of holograms a year. This has comprised solo shows, two-handers and group shows (20 so far), and exhibitions drawn from my personal collection of which the latest show is the 18th. This year I am focussing on holograms of objects.

The Polaroid/MIT scientist Stephen Benton famously described the subject matter of many early holograms as “small dead things”.

To make holograms of living subjects, humans, animals, plants etc. that are moving in a subtle way even when they appear to be still, you either need access to an expensive pulse laser that emits brief intense bursts of light which will effectively freeze a subject, or to record a holographic stereogram – a hybrid of photography and holography – whereby a photographic sequence is converted into a synthetic hologram, often incorporating animation. Pulse lasers are few and far between and stereograms require an elaborate system, so many holographers use low power continuous wave lasers which require relatively long exposure times to make their recordings. Consequently they choose subjects which are not going to move, and set up their optics on vibration isolation tables, which can weigh several tons.

All these factors determine the choice of objects which, as holographers usually want as bright an image as possible, tend to be ones that will reflect the light well, such as metal, glass, ceramics etc. Also, if it is a monochrome recording, ones where the final image being green, red or golden orange, does not detract unduly. Achromatic holograms, where the image most resembles a black and white photograph, can be effective, but are less widely made. A broadband recording in dichromate gelatin achieves a similar result.

A full-colour catalogue is available for this exhibition. You can view and download it as a pdf file, free of charge.

Use the button below which, depending on your web browser, will open a new page to view the catalogue and download it onto your device.

Look for the download icon (often in the top of your browser window).

30 October – 14 December  2025

Fenella Fielding –
Onstage, Offstage

A look at Fenella’s life through her personal effects

Private Views:
Thursday October 30th 6.30-8.30 pm
Thursday November 20th 6.30 – 8.30pm
Sunday December 14th 12.00 – 3.00pm

RSVP jross@gallery286.com

Viewing by appointment at other times

Details and booking at https://www.fenellafielding.com/

Beverley Mason

My paintings are always inspired by myth and magic. I love characters in elaborate costumes, which reflects my love of the theatrical. I am obsessed with beauty and glamour in any form and any gender, I am drawn in particular to androgyny which I think reflects the belief that archetypes can be either sex. I depict beauty and sexuality in any form through erotic landscapes and diverse imagery. I love the female form and celebrate every part of it. I combine ideas from movies, burlesque, theatre and circus concentrating on colour, costume and psychological dreamscapes.

Previous exhibition at Gallery 286.

Lisa Maria Ortiz

Produces paintings that put the viewer on intimate terms with her subjects, making work that deals with the documentation of events and questions how these can be presented. Her subjects are given a stage to shout to the world that they want to be seen.

People on the fringe of society that merge with the onlooker’s gaze, her figures are sometimes disassociated from their original meaning through her method of painting in layers and leaving the initial drawing showing, making the whole process visible.

Creating the sense of a lingering hidden world, Lisa Maria enjoys making works in which the actual event has still to take place or has just ended: moments built of atmosphere and suspense, focusing on how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and tells a story about the effects of social and sexual interaction. The images almost whisper ‘look at me’.

Lisa Maria is interested in the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other: to feel, suffer and love ourselves and each other seems to be a constant battle of the mind and an intense dialogue involving mental health. This is what inspires her to paint.

Mariz Nigro’s (b. 1990, Argentina) work unravels the shifting boundaries of identity, memory, and place, reflecting the tension of living between two worlds. As an Argentinian in the UK, she explores her own duality and the erosion of clear distinctions—between past and present, history and embodiment, magical thinking and the rational. Her work moves through the hazy space where nostalgia distorts, where distance sharpens and softens perspective in equal measure.

Influenced by the language of film, personal recollections, and the natural world, Mariz Nigro constructs atmospheric narratives that feel both intimate and unplaceable. Figures emerge within dreamlike spaces, caught between the familiar and the uncanny, as if suspended in a story just beyond reach. Her images invite the viewer to linger in this ambiguity, to navigate the thresholds between what is remembered, what is imagined, and what is real.

Mariz works across a range of media, primarily water-based, layering bold, expressive strokes with delicate areas of intricate detail. Her colour spills beyond the lines, mirroring her own dual identity—fluid, uncontained, existing in more than one place at once. The poignancy of her colour compositions challenges realism, shifting hues away from strict accuracy without disrupting the emotional weight of the scene. This delicate subversion heightens the dreamlike quality of her work while keeping it tethered to reality, as if viewed through the lens of memory. A quiet unease lingers in her compositions, drawing the viewer into a space where something has just happened—or is just about to.

In “This Monstrous Longing”, Mariz Nigro delves into the overwhelming emotions of displacement and the feeling of never quite belonging—an echo of her fragmented immigrant experience. Like the monsters of classic cinema, her homesickness and longing take on a life of their own, untethered from natural laws, corroding her memories and unraveling her present reality.

Her narrative pieces invite the viewer into an intimate inner world, shaped by layered symbolism: a fusion of her South American heritage, British landscapes, and the imagery of popular culture. This rich visual language explores the materiality of fabric—both literal and metaphorical—through intricate prints, patterns, and solar-sensitive dyes, evoking her love for theatre, early film costume design, and the emotional textures of migration and memory.

Feminine energy pulses through the work, reclaiming spaces long defined by the macho-coded male gaze of her past. Yet a quiet darkness persists: identities blur, and the figures that emerge exist in a space of existential uncertainty—just a second away, perhaps, from disappearing forever.

Susan Gamble and Michael Wenyon have collaborated since 1983. They are UNESCO Laureates, awarded in 1993, for their work with new technology.

The pair combine differing backgrounds in art and science.

Susan Gamble has degrees in Fine Art, from Goldsmiths’ College, London, and in the History of Science, from Cambridge University, while Michael Wenyon studied Physics at Bristol University and Optics at Imperial College, London.

Their works are in collections such as The Victoria & Albert Museum; the M.I.T. Collection, Boston; the National Portrait Gallery and the National Academies of Science, Washington DC, and have been exhibited internationally, including shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate Liverpool, Mito Art Tower, Japan. Their work was last exhibited in London at The Photographers Gallery in 1993.

In this show the artists muse on the photographic practice and organic material: coal and silver.

‘Silver Before Photography’ is a hologram of English silverware manufactured before the invention of photography. The hologram presents the illusion of antique spoons and ladles, resting on a table.

Holography was possibly the last analogue photographic process to use silver salts. Here the twentieth-century medium provides a window onto silver objects from an age before photography.

For this exhibit the artists have selected a nineteenth-century stereo Daguerreotype from the Jonathan Ross collection of a family grouped around a table, to allude to the domestic objects, scenes and processes that continue over time. The artists employ different media ––holograms and daguerreotypes––to reflect on the past and the sentimental lure of objects as they fade into history.

Jack Myntan; Unveiling the Unconscious

Step into the enigmatic world of Jack Myntan’s mind in this groundbreaking exhibition that blurs the lines between human creativity and artificial intelligence. Myntan, known for his innovative approach to art-making, invites viewers on a journey through the depths of the unconscious and the frontiers of technology.

At the heart of this exhibition lies Myntan’s unique process: a dance between the spontaneous and the calculated. Beginning with automatic drawing—a technique cherished by the Surrealists for its ability to bypass conscious thought—Myntan creates raw, unfiltered visual expressions of his psyche. But here’s where things get truly intriguing: these drawings are then fed into an AI system, which “reads” and interprets the artwork, revealing hidden aspects of the creator’s mind.

The result? A fascinating interplay between human intuition and machine analysis, where each piece becomes a portal into Myntan’s unconscious. Visitors will find themselves questioning the nature of creativity, the role of technology in art, and the very essence of what makes us human.

The gallery space comes alive with a collection of vivid, beautiful, and highly collectible prints documenting Myntan’s journey. Each print is a testament to Myntan’s playful yet profound exploration of the self, offering viewers a chance to own a piece of this fascinating artistic experiment.

But the exhibition holds an even deeper layer of intrigue. Many of the artworks are AR-active, concealing a tantalizing mystery that only visitors to the gallery can unravel. Through cutting-edge augmented reality technology, attendees will embark on an exclusive adventure, peeling back layers of meaning and uncovering hidden truths embedded within Myntan’s creations. This immersive experience promises to be a thrilling treasure hunt for the mind, available only to those who venture into the gallery space.

This exhibition is more than just a viewing experience—it’s an invitation to actively participate in the unfolding narrative of art and technology.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see the future of art unfold before your eyes, and to potentially uncover secrets hidden in plain sight. Prepare to have your perceptions altered in ways you never imagined possible!

https://jacksmind.com/exhibitions

Kasia Wozniak is an artist whose work investigates the tangibility of the photograph and how we view photographs today. Using predominantly the wet plate collodion technique, she interrogates ‘truth’ in photography and questions how we experience the time present and time past.

Working with the analogue enables Wozniak to stretch and distort the experience of time. While using long exposures, laborious darkroom experimentations and manipulations she explores the idea of approximation, moving away from veracity to something more liminal. Each anomaly is present and exposed on the surface of the created photograph. 
Simultaneously, she is passionate about the craft in photography and the necessity of its preservation.
Kasia’s work spreads across various personal projects, collaborations as well as commercial commissions. She is currently doing a residency at the Sarabande Foundation in London.

Archival C-Type prints from Unique Chromogenic Image

The series “ANEMOIA” is an ongoing series of photographic portraits of flowers. They explore the feeling of nostalgia for a time or place one has never experienced. Each portrait is captured with a large format camera and photographed directly on colour photographic paper, involving a long exposure to capture the ephemeral beauty and timeless essence of the flowers.

The flowers captured in these portraits have been lovingly nurtured by Camilla Shivarg in her Buckinghamshire cottage garden.

Camilla Shivarg is showing a selection of sculptures tracing a history of friendships with models and creative camaraderie from the 1980’s to today.

Working from the human figure, the pieces in the exhibition are testament to her passion for clay and to the absurdities inherent in wresting solidity and detail from a material which can change from malleable to unworkable in a matter of days. When successful, these bodies kneeling, turning or reclining are a marvel of engineering; since like Karin Jonzen, one of Shivarg’s great influences, these figures are all executed without internal armature or support. 

Her studio in Earls Court has for years been a haven for fellow sculptors, where an early need to share the resources of space and models’ time has evolved into a preference for companionship and of coming together for the common purpose of making. 

The result is an exhibition characterised by a sense of intimacy born of Camilla Shivarg’s attentiveness and fascination with the human form, and how its outward appearance expresses personality and lived experience. Presented in fired clay, bronze and bronze resin, old friends and new are brought together in silent dialogue, markers of moments shared; bodies in time and the hands that made them. 

Isabel de Vasconcellos
June 2024

Introduction

In this second exhibition curated for Gallery 286, Sydney Koke has made another great selection of holograms from my collection, dating from between 1988 – 1992, which was the era during which I stopped working in the commercial holography sector and began to pursue my love of the medium as used by creative artists. At that time the Royal College of Art in London had a department dedicated to holography, equipped with the best lasers and optics as well as a reliable source of material, manufactured by Agfa-Gevaert. It was a golden era to be a holographer and most of the artists in this exhibition were at the RCA at some point and benefited from the experience of some highly skilled technicians working there. Ten years before, there was very little creative holography being done in the UK but suddenly there was lots and I was in the lucky position to be able to acquire some of it.

Seeing these holograms on the walls of the gallery again gives me a lot of pleasure and I hope that visitors who are seeing them for the first time share my delight.

Jonathan Ross
April 2024

A full-colour catalogue is available for this exhibition.  You can view and download it as a pdf file, free of charge.

Use the button below which, depending on your web browser, will open a new page to view the catalogue and download it onto your device.

Look for the download icon (often in the top of your browser window).

Lenticular Prints

There is also a display of 3D and animated lenticular prints, including work by:

David Burder, Peter Blake, Patrick Boyd, Tim Bret Day, Richard Hamilton, Anthony Hopkins, Chris Levine, Jeffrey Robb, Martin Richardson and Elizabeth Sandford Richardson.