In 2024, NOW Gallery, the Greenwich Peninsula gallery famous for showcasing the most exciting emerging names across fashion, photography, design and art, celebrates its 10-year anniversary – a significant milestone that has been marked with some truly memorable exhibitions.
Since its inception, NOW Gallery has cemented itself as a true incubator of talent with an artist-first ethos, known for championing early-career talent before anyone else. Upholding values of bold self-expression, representation and non-censorship at its core, NOW Gallery has hosted debut exhibitions and installations from Molly Goddard, Mowalola, Joy Yamusangie, Charles Jeffrey, Nicholas Daley, Simone Brewster, Yinka Ilori, Camille Walala, Matty Bovan and more.
Always free to the public, it is one of the few non-profit London galleries that remunerates artists. NOW Gallery is a lifeblood of the capital’s art landscape, giving artists and creatives the opportunity to showcase their craft in unexpected ways that were previously unseen to their audiences.
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London's The Vinyl Factory exhibition that explores vinyl culture is coming to MelbourneAn unconventional and dynamic space housed in a curved glass fish bowl, NOW Gallery gives free rein for creatives to uniquely interpret the space. In 10 years, it transformed into a jazz club (Joy Yamusangie’s ‘Feeling Good’); an extraterrestrial planet (Lydia Chan’s ‘Your Ship Has Landed’) and a bold playground-like maze (Camille Walala’s ‘Walala X Play’). It has housed a giant knitted jumper (Matty Bovan’s ‘Ribbons’) and a bouncy castle tent (Robyn Lynch ‘Greetings from Ireland’).
NOW Gallery is run by an all-female team, comprising curators Jemima Burrill and Kaia Charles and Events & Exhibitions Coordinator India Stanbra. Drawing from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, the team’s combined expertise encompasses public artwork (Burrill has commissioned Jennifer Moore’s Bird Watching Logo Book, Alex Chinneck’s upside down pylon ‘A Bullet From A Shooting Star’, and Studio Morison’s 40-seater picnic table); visual art (Stanbra’s personal practice uses mechanical systems and 3D software to construct speculative ecologies, asking how living structures might evolve and adapt about human disturbance) and site-specific and architectural interventions (Charles has commissioned Hundreds and Thousands by Liz West, Promise Me Memories by Yinka Ilori, Conrad Shawcross’ Optic Cloak, Siblings by Morag Myerscough and the 33 Pavilion by Studio Weave).
Fashion
NOW Gallery’s annual Fashion Commission has become a staple moment in the city’s annual fashion calendar, showcasing Molly Goddard, Mowalola, Nicholas Daley, Matty Bovan, Mowalola, Phoebe English and others before they became the household names they are today. The gallery is known for giving young designers a chance to lift the curtain on the creative processes behind their brands and collections through installations and exhibitions. One of the only art institutions in the UK showcasing fashion at a monumental scale, NOW Gallery has established itself as one of the most vital incubators of British fashion.
Design
NOW Gallery’s Design Commission has given the likes of Camille Walala, Simone Brewster, Lydia Chan and Emmanuelle Moreaux limitless reign over the unique curved gallery space, leading to some extraordinary large-scale installations which have captivated the public. Transforming the space through these expansive exhibitions, NOW Gallery has cemented itself as one of the foremost arts spaces showcasing design while being comfortably situated at the threshold of the Design District, also on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Emerging Artists & Designers
The gallery’s Future Space Commission (FKA the Young Artist Commission) is awarded to emerging and diverse artists who are underrepresented in illustration, film and painting, giving an opportunity to apply 2D practice to a 3D spatial interpretation. has acted as a launchpad for artist’s careers. Previous recipients include acclaimed artist and designer Yinka Ilori; Sara Shakeel who has gone on to receive global recognition for her work which incorporates crystals and digital manipulation, and Joy Yamusangie, who was named as one of Dazed & Confused’s ‘New YBAs’.
Photography
Curated by Kaia Charles, Human Stories is a series of annual photographic displays that encourage a contemporary discourse on modern life and the human scale. By engaging with modern and progressive communities, artists, photographers, historians, filmmakers, writers and thinkers, Human Stories translates these messages into compelling visual displays. Past shows include ‘A Young South Africa’, which spotlighted South African photography, bringing together six photographers and creative practitioners documenting the diverse culture of their home nation, framed by a complex and sometimes turbulent political, socio-economic and cultural landscape.
2024 Programme
In 2024, NOW Gallery is set to continue with its boundary-pushing, diverse programme of exhibitions.
War Child Presents Secret 7” – 2nd – 17th March 2024
The much-loved anonymous charity record sale returns after a four-year hiatus. Combining music and art for a good cause, Secret 7” invites some of the world’s biggest artists and designers to create one-of-a-kind record sleeves for 700 records, which will be exhibited and then sold, with all proceeds going to War Child.
Future Space Commission: Like A Melody by Charlotte Mei – 29 March – 2nd June 2024
British-Chinese artist and illustrator Charlotte Mei will transform NOW Gallery into an other-worldly setting replete with relics and fantasy characters, inspired by her love of anime and fantasy.
Design Commission: Up In Smoke by John Booth & Mat Barnes – 21st June – 22nd September 2024
Up in Smoke uses the chimney to chart the history of the Greenwich Peninsula through a bold and colourful installation which invites people of all ages to interact with 5 re-imagined chimneys from the area’s past.
Human Stories: Unreported Uprisings by Ines Elsa Delal – 11th October – 17th November 2024
Documenting in solidarity with striking workers. Anything less than a pay rise during times of inflation and economic recession, is a pay cut. Inès Elsa Dalal works with people across all sectors of society: from the front lines during the pandemic, to breadlines due to the Cost of Living Crisis, to picket lines of protestors travelling across the UK to advocate for their right to fair pay in central London.
Fashion Commission: Sock Mending by Celia Pym – 6th December 2024 – 23 February 2025
Working with Surrey Square Primary School, London-based artist Celia Pym’s ‘Sock Mending’ will showcase an ambitious school-wide project to mend thousands of socks and get a whole community mending. The exhibition will highlight our relationship with clothes and sustainability while advocating for a more considerate approach to fashion and the way we wear our clothes.
Find out more www.nowgallery.co.uk
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