CAVALIERO FINN PRESENTS "THE LAND AND THE GARDEN" : British Art Fair Stand 48, Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York HQ, King’s Road, London SW3 4RY

 

For immediate release - July 21^st 2025: Inspired by the title of the book, "The Land and The Garden" by Vita Sackville-West, Cavaliero Finn presents a group of works that embody just that. In a time of uncertainty and anxiety about the world, the gallery shows a collection of artworks that exude hope and joy - as Vita Sackville-West said herself, "…No gardener would be a gardener if he did not live in hope."

 

The Land and the Garden will feature work by contemporary artists, Annie Turner, Cecilia Moore, David Edmond, Kate Sherman and Simon Gaiger.

 

Annie Turner makes distinctive ceramic sculptures imbued with the Suffolk landscape where she lives and works. Using lithium carbonate granules in her glaze, which she applies with a long homemade brush, Annie creates sculptures that appear to have been weathered by the ever-changing ebb and flow of the river Deben, with forms that connect to the industry that worked the river, such as mussel boxes, nets, jetties and river ladders. 

 

Annie Turner studied under Eduardo Paolozzi at the Royal College of Art in the eighties and 2019 she was shortlisted for the Loewe Craft Prize with an exhibition in Japan.  She has work in numerous collections including the V&A Museum and the Fitzwilliam Museum.

 

 

David Edmond has painted a series of works inspired by his South London Garden.  Capturing hedgerows, vibrant bushes and wild flowers he paints large canvases filled with colour and abundance. His layered paintings, combine his distinctive style of loose abstract areas with more detailed, rigid areas of figuration. The paintings suggest a garden that extends beyond the canvas. In one painting, David Edmond has reinterpreted Cezanne's Gardener, presenting him in a contemporary garden context, his distinctive hat a nod to these famous portraits of Vallier which were at the time, a very significant influence on the development of Cubism. David combines different techniques, abstraction and figuration, loose dripping paint makes up his shirt, while the foreground is divided up by the more rigid planes of the garden stakes.  Like his street paintings, which regularly feature in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, David presents interesting cropped views, drawing our eye to small beautiful details that could normally go unnoticed. 

 

David Edmond has had work selected for several important exhibitions including, The Columbia Threadneedle Prize, Mall Gallery, 2018, the Lynn Painter Stainer Prize, Mall Gallery, 2017, Discerning Eye, Mall Gallery, 2016, Arcade Fine Arts, 2016, Turps - Art Bermondsey Project Space, 2016, Clifford Chance Annual Pride Art Exhibition, 2015, and numerous Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions, most recently in 2024 and 2025. David's work has been published in Michael Petry's book 'Nature Morte' for Thames and Hudson.

 

Kate Sherman's paintings originate from photographs. This photographic source is important because the paintings capture a reflective notion of memory, of the emotional distance between a real landscape and a photograph, between experience and longing. It is a poignant and quiet melancholy reminiscent of the artist Edward Hopper, that is expressed both by the portrayal of sparse unpopulated landscapes containing elemental traces of man, and by her restrained palette. 

 

Originally from the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, Kate now lives and works in Sussex. Kate's work has featured several times in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, most recently in 2024.   In 2021, it was featured in Figurative Art Now, Mall Galleries, London and in 2019 her work was selected for theING Discerning Eye Exhibition, also at Mall Galleries, London.

 

Public Gardens, The National Botanical Gardens in fact, provide inspiration for metal artist Cecilia Moore who lives and works in Dublin. Combining 'raising' - an ancient hammering technique used by silversmiths, with patination, Cecilia Moore creates colourful, playful sculptures in a range of metals including copper, bronze, copper-based alloys and silver, often working with found objects and used metal parts.  Little Hollyhock is from her Biomorph series, made from copper, sheet bronze, patina and paint.   Weighted inside, the sculpture rocks creating movement and capturing the transient delicacy of the flower that needs no watering. Cecilia's skill is transforming hard materials into a sculpture that evokes the softness and fragility of a flower.   

 

Cecilia lives and works in Dublin, Ireland.  Her work is exhibited internationally, and is in public and private collections, including the V&A Museum London, National Museum of Ireland, the Ulster Museum and the Irish State Collection

 

Sculptor Simon Gaiger is making a piece specially for the British Art Fair. Working and living on a large farm in the ancient and post-industrial landscapes of Wales, the landscape very much informs his work.  Simon's sculptures are simultaneously human and landscape, narrative and abstract - the energy of their forms and the universality of their themes give them their resonance.  Working in wood and metal, he creates sculptures made from ancient farm machinery, pulled from the hedgerows and reinvented into new narratives with a title that often gives a hint to its former life. Influences from a childhood in Sudan, Uganda and the South Pacific can be found in his work, as well as knowledge gathered from time spent working as a shipwright's assistant and shepherd in the Falklands, and training in landscape construction.   

 

Simon's work has been a regular feature of Cavaliero Finn's exhibitions over the years and is currently on show in FROM NATURE - the inaugural exhibition at Thorns Gallery run by Jonathan Reed and Graeme Black in Yorkshire.  His work can be found in private collections around the world.

 

Simon is creating new work especially for the British Art Fair 2025.