The gallery format gave visitors a way to compare painting, prints, photography, sculpture and other contemporary practices in a single visit. For a first-time buyer, the advantage was the opportunity to discuss materials and presentation directly with an exhibitor. For an established collector, the same conversations could reveal an unfamiliar artist or a new direction in a known practice.
Discover: Young Talent
The 2026 presentation featured Laura Pittam, Sian Farrell, Sophie Clews, Mai Naito and Polly Dawson. Seeing these artists together offered a useful counterpoint to the commercial gallery stands: different approaches to image-making could be considered as individual practices rather than as a single emerging-art trend.
Official programme illustrations included Sophie Clews’s Her Last Breath, Mai Naito’s Reverie in Bloom and Polly Dawson’s Boys on the Beach. Looking closely at such works invites questions about memory, composition and the relationship between a photographed or observed scene and its eventual transformation into an artwork.
The Children’s Studio, developed with Claudio Kirac, introduced a practical, creative route into the fair. Families could alternate looking and making, rather than expecting younger visitors to follow an uninterrupted gallery circuit. Complimentary wrapping through Fantastic Framing also formed part of the visitor services.
