Anna Thew

30 Oct-20 Dec 2025

PV 30 Oct 2025, 6-9pm

Overview

Anna Thew made her first film in 1980, at that time British experimental cinema was dominated by the Structuralist Materialist school, which questioned the specificity of the medium and above all its materiality. However, in her works Thew both questioned and expanded this position and gained a reputation for film and performance works emotive content. Creating beautiful images beautifully edited and ‘cut up’ alongside spoken word soundtracks, Thew creates sometimes biographical and often poetic works that cover multiple screens and use assemblage to push the limits of what is possible where art, music and poetry collide. Examples of her unique combination of references leading to what she describes as ‘optical counterpoint’ come to light in works such as Hilda Was a Goodlooker (1986), Eros Erosion (1990), her seminal film in response to the HIV epidemic Cling Film (1993) and more recently Stolen Time – The Revenge of the Lost Negatives (2016)

Thew has always made drawings and music as well as performed in her work and alongside her practice as a film maker. This new exhibition seeks to grasp at the complex strands of her work and to bring together historic and recent works on paper and on film in a show made up of works never shown, and clips and reels never screened. The show will culminate in a new work including multi-screen projection at the gallery for the duration of the exhibition.