Art / News
Hidden Gallery returns to its roots
Hidden Gallery has announced a new upcoming exhibition.
The exhibition, called Brilliance: Contemporary Colour, will be inviting its artists who exhibited at the gallery when it first opened in 2016.
Alongside the Brilliance: Contemporary Colour exhibition, Hidden will also have a range of original, rare works by internationally known artists including Picasso, Hockney and Emin.
is needed now More than ever
Hidden will be hosting an opening reception on October 17 from 6pm to 8pm at the gallery in the Clifton Arcade.
Amy Hampshire, senior manager of Hidden Gallery says: “We are delighted to celebrate the fabulous work of the emerging artists who have been with Hidden for nearly a decade
“The exhibition will showcase works in a variety of mediums from silkscreen and Giclee prints, to acrylic paintings and sculptures. There will be something for all tastes and budgets.”
Javi Tanke, a graphic artist and printmaker based in Bristol is one of the artists exhibiting. He describes his work as “sceptical, post-punk and bold“. Having been involved in the arts since a teenager, he has had a lengthy career, moving to Madrid to study sculpture and then working at the prestigious Royal Tapestry Factory.
Later, living in Hong Kong for over a decade, working as a designer, art director and strategist.
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Chitra Merchant is a screen printer who completed her illustrations degree at UWE.
Chitra’s art is influenced by Indian historical sites as well as the Western Ghats forest ecologies, where she grew up and often visits, drawing inspiration from sacred groves (Devakads), their myths, and the ecological crisis and how it manifests in these areas.
Her artworks celebrate biodiversity, particularly rooted in observational drawings of ancient species vital to the region’s medicinal, spiritual, and symbolic significance.
Leveraging screen-printing’s versatility for colour, tone, line, and text layering. These pieces reflect profound emotional connections to colour, transporting viewers to exotic realms, a likely reason for their huge success at Royal Academy exhibitions and Christie’s.
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Frederique Swist is a graphic designer, focusing on the relationship between art and science, specifically the visualisation of physics through art.
Swist strives to contribute to the communication of science from a visual approach, as she explores scientific concepts primarily from an aesthetic perspective. She takes inspiration from technical graphs, diagrams and models found in published scientific research.
The resulting artwork is colour-charged, highly visual, new imagery, aesthetically distanced but never fully detached from its original meaning.
Swist also refers to other visual traditions, such as colour theories from the Bauhaus and highly constructed compositions from the influence of Swiss Modernist designers.
She also attended UWE where she gained her doctorate.

Nanoparticle Gold Ring N*5 Print, currently on display at the Saatchi Gallery in London – photo:
Frédérique Swist
Brilliance: Contemporary Colour will be on display at Hidden Gallery from October 17-27. For more information, visit www.hiddengallery.co.uk/events/76/overview
Main photo: Hannah Massoudi
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