The Paddocks Gallery is pleased to present Walled Garden, a solo exhibition by artist-in-residence, Luke Alex Atkinson. The exhibition brings together a series of new paintings and works on paper, created during Atkinson’s residencies at KYAN Athens and The Paddocks throughout Autumn 2024. This continuation of residencies and exhibition mark a new chapter in an ongoing collaboration between the two spaces, building on a shared commitment to supporting artistic growth and strengthening a sense of community.
Walled Garden represents a compelling paradox between urban rigidity and surprising charm. Inspired by the colours and textures of Athens, Still Life (Talisman) serves as the starting point for Atkinson’s Still Life series — transforming ordinary, densely-built cityscapes into captivating studies of light. Light acts as both subject and catalyst, creating a sense of transience and allure within urban confines. As the surfaces of buildings catch and reflect the sun, they become dynamic conduits for shifting warm hues, offering an ever-changing interplay of shadow and light.
The works tread the line between still life and landscape, oscillating between representation and abstraction. Approaching the urban setting as one would a still life subject, Atkinson transforms static structures into something akin to a “walled garden” — a place of confinement that conceals beauty within its bounds. Grounded in place and time yet resonant on a universal level, Walled Garden exemplifies a practice rooted in observation, reminiscent of an Impressionist sensitivity. Atkinson’s attention to his surroundings encourages looking beyond what immediately meets the eye, asking ‘What else is there?’.
Where concrete and neglect are prominent, Walled Garden searches for interiority and grace. Rather than documenting architecture in a literal sense, the works re-examine the structures that surround us as opportunities for moments of reflection. Walled Garden explores the often overlooked and the transformative, celebrating how our perspective can shift our appreciation of even the most familiar subjects, and ultimately, how perception itself is shaped by how we choose to see.
