Albion Jeune in London reopens with Alia Ahmad’s ‘Thought to Image’

Albion Jeune, a new gallery in Fitzrovia, London, reopened post a revamp on May 2, 2024, with Thought to Image, a solo show of paintings by Saudi Arabian artist Alia Ahmad. It is the second exhibition at the space founded by art historian and gallerist Lucca Hue-Williams last October, just off Oxford Circus. The gallery’s inaugural show presented stained-glass panes by Danish multimedia artist Esben Weile Kjær. Hue-Williams plans her shows two years in advance, but first, she focused on making the 1,300-square-foot space fit her ambitious vision. For this, she hired British architect John Pawson, whose minimalist aesthetics are a statement in themselves. In our conversation over Zoom from Beijing, which Hue-Williams visited for an event just a few days before Thought to Image opened, she told STIR about her choice, “John is one of my favourite architects. He is the godfather of minimalist architecture and his design is ideal for showcasing the artwork we plan to exhibit. My focus is on championing the artists in our programme more than anything else.”

Alia Ahmad was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1996. Thought to Image is Ahmad’s first solo show in the UK and follows her participation in the 2024 Diriyah Biennale in Saudi Arabia as well as her exhibition, Terhal Gheim (The voyage of clouds), at White Cube in Paris until May 18, 2024. The Saudi Arabian artist’s exhibition at Albion Jeune is her first solo show in the UK. When I asked Hue-Williams why she invited Ahmad, she explained, “Alia is a brilliant painter and I was mesmerised by her work when I first saw it. She continues the lineage of landscape painting and her work is inspired by the lush characteristics of Riyadh’s industrialised desert, Al Sadu textiles and the oldest form of Arabic script. I plan to continue presenting international artists working in different mediums. I am interested in art with a strong narrative, authentic voice and often solid political undercurrents.”

I plan to continue presenting international artists working in different mediums. I am interested in art with a strong narrative, authentic voice and often solid political undercurrents.
– Lucca Hue-Williams

The idea to start Albion Jeune came from Hue-Williams’ experience of engaging with young artists, especially during the inaugural Diriyah Biennale in 2021, where she assisted the Biennale’s curator Philip Tinari. They also worked together at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, where Tinari is the director. Hue-Williams said, “My initial ambition was to set up an independent cultural exchange platform in London for the next generation of incredibly talented artists. I am working with artists who are well-known in their home countries but haven’t been shown in the UK before.”

Hue-Williams holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where she focused on Surrealism, photography and new media, contemporary Asian art, Modern American art, and contemporary Chinese art and geopolitics. The gallerist grew up around artists, curators, and collectors through her work and family business; her father, art dealer Michael Hue-Williams, runs Albion Barn and Fields, a 50-acre sculpture park in Oxfordshire. In the early 2000s, he owned Albion Gallery, London’s largest commercial gallery space, which was designed by Norman Foster, with the interiors designed by India Mahdavi. The gallery, which exhibited celebrated artists such as Xu Bing, Jaume Plensa, James Turrell, and Ai Weiwei, closed in 2009. The name Albion Jeune reflects that lineage and is also an ode to both Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery Guggenheim Jeune in London and the much earlier Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris.

Thought to Image is curated by Sacha Craddock, a New Zealand-born and London-based independent art critic and curator who is also a co-founder of ArtSchool Palestine. The exhibition brings together a collection of 10 paintings, all the same size–120 cm x 140 cm. Hue-Williams told STIR, “These paintings pick up on Alia’s work with patterns and textures. The work is very gestural in approach and has a distinctive style. These paintings were all done as a series specifically for our show.”

Albion Jeune plans to continue partnering with other galleries to work on exhibitions, programmes and publications. Hue-Williams said, “There are galleries in other regions that work with the artists we plan to exhibit and represent. We work closely together. For example, we are now working with a Serbian artist, Ivana Bašić, on her show at Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin next month. We also work closely with a couple of other galleries that work with her. Most importantly, we want to collaborate with the art world.”