taster

About

Coups Contemporary is pleased to present taster, the gallery’s first group exhibition, featuring works by Dan He, Irene Pouliassi, Hee Jyung Kim, Robert Cooper, Brandon Logan, Harry Whitelock, Yasmine Robinson, and Andrea Christodoulides. The artists included give an insight into the gallery’s vision, whetting the appetite for what is to come over the next year.

Dan He (b.1990, China) focuses on challenging the European tradition of painting the female nude as the object of the male gaze, in my paintings, the female body takes on a feminine power. Passive eroticism is diminished and a domineering quality emerges by using large subject compositions to fill the entire frame. She studied BA Fine Art at Nanchang University, Jiangxi, China before completing her MA Fine Art at Camberwell College of Arts, London in 2021.

Irene Pouliassi (b.1989, Greece) holds a Master’s Integrated in Painting (2016) from the Fine Arts School at the University of Western Macedonia, and in 2018 she continued her studies at Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, graduating with a Master’s in Fine Arts. She has exhibited her work and has participated in projects in cities like, Athens, New York, London, Taipei, Seoul and Milan, in institutions and museums such as Tate Modern (London), Sejong Museum of Art (Seoul), Jing Lu Gallery (Taipei), Charlie Smith London, National Historical Museum of Tirana (Albania) and more. She is represented by Peritechnon Karteris Gallery, Athens and is a resident artist at Bomb Factory Foundation. From 2021 she is a Member of Royal Sculptor Society.

Hee Jyung Kim is a Korean artist based in London. Inspired by the border of memory and experience, she expresses visual language through drawing, painting, collage and installation – exploring correlations in the roots, state and depths of the mind as well as the body. Kim aims to create work in which inner and outer worlds harmonise with chaos. Her work has featured in recent solo shows at Coups Contemporary, London, UK (2022), Hongcheon Museum, Hongcheon, South Korea (2022) and Space 9, Seoul, South Korea (2021). Recent selected group exhibitions include: Hypha studio, London, UK (2023), Air Gallery, Manchester, UK (2022), D-Contemporary, London, UK (2022) and Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2021).

Robert Cooper is a multidisciplinary artist whose drawings and paintings sit between expressionism and abstract expressionism, relying on intuitive colour choice and graphic mark making to capture the appearance of a subject as a visualisation of a feeling. He studied at Central Saint Martins and Edinburgh College of Art. Robert has worked on two notable collaborations ARE THEY ALL YOURS, with Polly Morgan at Hix (2019) and FUGUE, with Kate Dunn at The Tub (2021). He has exhibited in multiple group shows with London based galleries including GUTS Gallery, Lungley Gallery, Subsidiary Projects and Collective Ending. His debut solo show ACTAEON was shown at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation in London (2021). He lives and works in London with a studio at the Sarabande Foundation.

Brandon Logan (b.1996, Aberdeen) currently lives and works in Stromness, in the Orkney Islands where he grew up. He makes paintings through a distinctive process which developed from a desire to work on a surface more permeable and mutable than a traditional canvas. Logan graduated with an MA (Hons) Fine Art from Edinburgh College of Art in 2019. Selected exhibitions include Instalments, Ingleby, Edinburgh (2021), RSA New Contemporaries, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2020) and Saved Phrases, Zembla Gallery, Hawick (2019). Selected awards include RSA Carnegie Scholarship and Maclaine Watters Medal (2020) The Fleming Collection and Scotland House, Emerging Scottish Artist of the Year (2020) Visual Arts Scotland Graduate Showcase Award (2019) and The Astaire Art Prize (2019).

Harry Whitelock (b.1996) is a British artist from Hull, living and working in London. He studied Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art (2015-18) and completed an MA at the Royal Drawing School, London, in 2019. His practice is informed by the material exploration of paint and how it can be used to visualise and embody subconscious narratives and the tensions people hold within themselves. Many of the works take form over a long time. Responding intuitively in layers, utilising mistakes and unplanned marks to create an object that holds the viewer in a state of apprehension. He explores themes of belief, memory, idealisation, tension and doubt, evoking mystery and creating a space to hold unknown feelings.

Yasmine Robinson (b.1994, N. Ireland), currently based in Belfast, lecturing in Fine Art Foundation Studies at Belfast School of Art. Robinson was awarded a Distinction in her Masters of Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art, London (2018), having previously studied BA Fine Art at Ulster University, Belfast (2017). Robinson has been the recipient of awards including; Arts Council of Northern Ireland, SIAP General Arts Award (2022), Tiffany & Co. Outset Studio Makers Prize, London (2018) and RDS Visual Arts Award, Dublin (2017). In 2017 she was awarded the Frank Bowling Scholarship at Chelsea College of Art. Recent projects and exhibitions include; New Exits, The MAC, Belfast (2022), Zabludowicz Master-Class, London (2022), Mutation Station at im labor, Tokyo, Japan (2021), Penumbra, F.E Mc William Gallery, Belfast (2021), Absinthe, Collective Ending, London (2019).

Andrea Christodoulides (b.1994, Cyprus) gained her BA in Painting from The University of Edinburgh in 2017 before proceeding on to gain an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London in 2019. She works across drawing, painting and works on fabric presenting the viewer with vibrant and colourful pieces, conveying a mysterious atmosphere and a multilayered, open-ended narrative. Recent exhibitions include Hastings Open 2022, Run!, Garaz, Nicosia, Cyprus (2021), Royal Academy of Music Piano Festival, London (2019) and ArtWorks Open, Barbican Arts Group Trust, London (2018).