Vardaxoglou presents a solo presentation with British artist Lewis Brander (b. 1995, London, UK) at Independent art fair in a shared booth with James Cope (Dallas, TX). For the artist’s debut in New York, the presentation includes a group of new paintings made in London over the past two years.

Exploring the shifts in natural light in both Northern and Southern Europe, the colour of the sky has become a constant reference in Brander’s paintings since returning to London from Athens, Greece. In his paintings, Brander references sites of historical significance both to industrial London and also to his own familial history; his ancestors were refugees from Eastern Europe and settled near the area where he now works. Brander combines these histories with an interpretation of the historical movements of English romanticism, post-war American abstraction and the School of London painters. Lewis Brander’s paintings are a device for which light and atmosphere are not only observed and recorded, but a place in which the language and history of painting is played out.

In ArtReview, Tom Morton writes “For an artist born in 1995, there's much that is curiously retrograde in [Lewis] Brander's painterly address. There are elements of J.M. W. Turner's light-strafed romanticism and of James McNeill Whistler's misty urban sublime, traces of Brice Marden's fields of fine-tuned colour and of Howard Hodgkin's heat-hazed, near-abstract landscapes. At his best, Brander employs landscape as a method of drawing disparate moments - even histories - together into a single image. What he paints is not only space, but also time.”

Recent solo exhibitions include, ‘Lewis Brander’, Vardaxoglou Gallery, London, UK (2024); ‘Lewis Brander: Works on Paper’, Vardaxoglou Gallery, London, UK (2023); ‘Lewis Brander’, Vardaxoglou Gallery, London, UK (2022). Lewis Brander’s recent and forthcoming group exhibitions include, ‘British Painting Now’, cur. Tom Morton, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX (2025); ‘Last Night I Dreamt of Manderley’, cur. Daniel Malarkey, Alison Jacques Gallery, London, UK (2025); ‘Painters from London’, Mattia de Luca Gallery, Rome, Italy (2025); ‘TWOxTWO for Aids & Art’, Rachofsky House, Dallas, TX (2024); ‘Unreal City: Abstract Painting in London’, Saatchi Gallery, London (2024); Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room, London, UK (2024); Nottingham Contemporary Gala, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK (2023).

Independent
Spring Studios
50 Varick Street
New York, NY 10013

Fair Dates
8–11 May 2025

Fair Hours
Thursday, May 8: 11AM – 8PM (By Invitation)
Friday, May 9: 11AM – 7PM
Saturday, May 10: 11AM – 7PM
Sunday, May 11: 11AM – 6PM