A new independent gallery is adding extra colour to the East Dulwich neighbourhood, celebrating emerging and celebrated artists alike, writes Maya Sgaravato-Grant…
The Ben Oakley Gallery soft launched on North Cross Road at the start of this year, where it found a new home after 15 years building a loyal following at Greenwich Market, gaining a reputation for showcasing contemporary works from often award-winning international and local artists.
Its founder, artist and entrepreneur Ben Oakley, said that he was originally inspired to establish the space after reflecting on his own experience of breaking into the art world.
“It’s quite a difficult door to open at the beginning of an artist’s career,” he said. “I wanted to create a platform for emerging artists.”
With this goal in mind, the gallery soon became a place where the ‘fresh ideas’ of emerging, young artists were celebrated, and given much needed exposure.
Gaining prominence, Oakley also began to be contacted by more established artists, who found that the nature of the gallery gave them more ‘freedom to experiment’.
Over the years, it has collaborated with celebrated artists such as ATM, a street artist painting birds threatened with extinction; photorealist artist John McCarthy; Giles Walker, a kinetic artist who focused on animatronics; and Asboluv, a prominent graffiti artist influenced by the UK’s anarcho-punk scene.
Like his Greenwich gallery, the East Dulwich venue will host a diverse selection of artists, ranging from oil painters to stencilers to spray paint artists.
“My thinking is, if I’d have it in my house I’d have it in a gallery”, Oakley said, explaining his curatorial decisions.
The establishment is currently gearing up for its inaugural exhibition, which will be held from the evening of 12 March and showcases the work of Ray Richardson, an artist with whom Ben Oakley has been working for a number of years.
Labeled the ‘Martin Scorsese of Oil’, Richardson has built up a reputation for his cinematic paintings of gritty London life, and has previously won a BP Portrait Award Commendation as well as British Council Awards.
Entitled ‘London Diamond’, the star of the exhibition will be ‘Estuary English’, a painting which received the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery London in 2024.
Over the course of the exhibition there will also be a Q&A session and an exclusive screen print day.
“The building we’re in used to be called Maison Dog, and Ray is famous for painting English Bull Terriers,” Oakley noted. “I like little connections like that.”
Following the exhibition, the space will be hosting monthly shows throughout the year.
The gallery has also had a yearly tradition of putting on charity events to raise money for St Christopher’s Hospice, only ever skipping last year’s iteration due to the lack of a venue. The next such event is scheduled for December.
The gallery is free to visit, and you may even leave with a beautiful new piece of contemporary art.
Address: 20 North Cross Road, East Dulwich, London SE22 9EU
