Gesture | Part 2

28 Apr-27 Jun 2025

Overview

Abstraction in East London

Felstead Art is pleased to present Gesture, showcasing four East London artists exploring the language of abstraction. Gesture is a two part exhibition, spread across both our Trampery and Threadneedle spaces.
 
Abstraction captures a broad range of possibilities. Drawing in the imagination and allowing the artist to lead us on a journey. Each brush stroke acting as a desire to communicate the ineffable - creating a dialect within an ever-evolving living language.
 
The history of abstraction is a story of evolution, rooted in movement and gesture. A narrative of personal, social, cultural, and political redefinitions. 
 
Gesture brings together Anna Kolosova, Ben Wakeling, Graham Duncan Elder, and Moisés Moreno. Four artists that show unique gestural styles, whilst also reflecting the soul of East London - an area of constant creative flux and reinvention. Together they draw from both local and diasporic influences, re-imagining abstraction through multiple lenses. 
  
ANNA KOLOSOVA (Latvian, b. 1991) 

Originally from Latvia, Anna Kolosova is a London based contemporary artist whose work fuses classical training with experimental, sensory-led approaches. Educated at the Surikov Art Lyceum in Moscow and Central Saint Martins in London, she combines an academic past with a bold shift into abstraction. Her experience of synaesthesia -perceiving sounds, smells, and words as colours- informs her vivid paintings and live “Synaesthetic Action Painting” performances, which translate internal perception into visual form. 

Working across painting, performance, and digital media, Kolosova often incorporates found objects and structures her compositions using principles like the Golden Ratio. Her practice explores the intersection of sensory experience, memory, and emotion, with recent forays into NFTs and virtual exhibitions. 

BEN WAKELING (British, b. 1985) 

Ben Wakeling is a British artist whose expressive figurative paintings explore themes of identity, trauma, and mental health. Drawing from a background in graffiti and a lived experience with mental health recovery, Wakeling creates raw and emotionally charged works, both on canvas and by using unconventional tools like paint-filled fire extinguishers. His figures often emerge from layered, gestural marks, evoking the tension between concealment and exposure. 

Beyond the studio, Wakeling is a dedicated mental health advocate. He leads successful arts programs within NHS forensic services and founded the Outsider Gallery, showcasing work by artists from marginalized and clinical communities. 

GRAHAM DUNCAN ELDER (British, b. 1981) 

Graham Duncan Elder is a London based painter whose work merges abstraction and figuration to explore memory, identity, and presence. Growing up in East London during a time of cultural flux, Elder absorbed influences from street art, music, and underground visual culture, which continue to echo through his work today. 

A graduate of Hull School of Art & Design, Elder has developed a distinctive practice marked by stylised figures and fragmented spaces. His compositions balance bold colour, pattern, and expressive forms, demonstrating an engagement with the passage of time and the fragility of human connection. 

MOISÉS MORENO (Spanish, b. 1979) 

Now based in London, Spanish artist Moisés Moreno is an abstract painter whose work delves into the emotional tensions and fragmented natures of contemporary society. Drawing influence from both Art Informel and Abstract Expressionism, Moreno’s practice combines impulsive, gestural brushwork with underlying structural control. His paintings are built through layers of decision-making, where both expressive marks and negative spaces are equally controlled. 

Despite living with colour blindness, Moreno has cultivated a highly attuned sensitivity to surface, tone, and spatial rhythm. His compositions often reflect a push and pull between motion and stillness, offering viewers moments of reflection amid a visual intensity.