Artist: Savannah Marie Harris

Gloria’s transforms the gallery into a functional community social space, acting as a group exhibition and cafe where guests are invited to relax, eat and chill. Responding to a collective feeling of scarcity toward true leisure spaces, the show offers a space for discourse surrounding the changing nature of inner city life and places an emphasis on fostering community in a growing atmosphere of unrest and conflict.

Abstraction links all five artists, alongside the ways they present aspects of their Caribbean heritage. Using materials that resemble aspects of Caribbean environments, paintings and ceramics dot the walls to create moments of stillness, conversation, whilst audiences use the ceramics as plates to share food offerings in the space.

Gloria’s seeks to provoke conversation, not only about the state of our city but also about the purpose of art, commercially and socially. Four out of five artists will be unknown to you, seeking to platform international ‘outsider’ artists is a key part of Harlesden High Street’s programming and also seeks to critique the state of commercial art right now, questioning, do you actually like the art or do you just know who the artist is?