19/9/2025
London Art Collective (LAC) recently concluded its yearly major exhibition ArtEvol 2025: Voices from the Undefined at Saatchi Gallery, curated by Nelson Qin. Presented in a salon-style curation featuring nearly 80 works, including painting, sculpture, experimental moving image, ceramics, and hybrid installations, the exhibition sought to explore its theme in bold and innovative ways, highlighting works that were both avant-garde and deliberately open-ended. The word “EVOL” suggested reversal and renewal, with art reshaping its own possibilities in moments of uncertainty and change. Drawing on ideas from cybernetics (feedback, adaptation, and open systems), the works in this exhibition demonstrated how artists responded to their environments and the times they lived in.
The opening night drew an engaged and appreciative audience, including artists, art critics, curators, and collectors, with lively discussions and an atmosphere of exchange, reflecting the exhibition’s ethos of dialogue and engagement across disciplines and practices. ArtEvol 2025: Voices from the Undefined further highlighted the transformative possibilities of art in moments of uncertainty, illustrating how artists working across disciplines and identities develop practices that both challenge conventions and open new paths for creative inquiry.
Especially notable among the works on view were Hiro Shen’s monumental sculpture Is It Still (2025), Joan Horrach’s durational video Somehow, Elsewhere No.4 (2025), and Kirin Crooks’ layered painting Yang Mucen (2025).
Hiro Shen’s sculpture functioned as a meditation on emotional sedimentation. Handblown glass vessels filled with honey in varying states—fluid, crystallised, or darkened—evoked early love, social expectations, and other experiences that accumulated within the self over time. Through the material intelligence of the work, Shen transformed personal memory into a shared, tangible presence, revealing how unresolved states persisted and evolved.
Joan Horrach’s video explored the intersection of repetition, performance, and alienation. A group of figures pacing back and forth in a 32-minute durational video became both hypnotic and unsettling, reflecting the mechanised rhythms of contemporary life and social systems. Initially staged in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and later in waiting rooms and office corridors, the work emphasised how repetitive gestures revealed broader structural pressures while maintaining an eerie intimacy.
By contrast, Kirin Crooks’ Yang Mucen embraced the personal and familial. The layered charcoal and acrylic painting, created during a moment of artistic euphoria that coincided with the passing of the artist’s grandfather, became both elegy and archive. Its accumulated layers recorded gestures and decisions, embodying the intertwining of personal history and artistic process, and demonstrating how meaning emerged retrospectively from lived experience.
ArtEvol 2025: Voices from the Undefined concluded as a significant exhibition for LAC, reaffirming the collective’s commitment to nurturing experimental practices and amplifying emerging voices. By spotlighting works that were open-ended, innovative, and challenging, the exhibition offered audiences a nuanced perspective on the evolving landscape of contemporary art in London and beyond. Special thanks to gallery rosenfeld and the ArtEvol 2025 Committee for their invaluable support.
Alena Alice, Amelia Peng, Anastasia Karageorge, Armin Amirian, Bbblob (Jacelyn Zhen), Bozorgmehr Hosseinpour, Chantelle Chong, conformity.sucks (Danica Dsouza), Curtis Holder, David Aston, Edward Raneri, Ellie Davies, Emilija Povilanskaite and Yuma Burgess, Evelyn Liao, Gemma Holzer, Helena Vallée-Dallaire, Hiro Shen, Hyunju Roh, Inferstudio, Iseult Pigot, Ishbel Angus, James Hopkins, Jingtian Yang, Joan Horrach, Judy Clarkson, Juliano Cordano, Kirin Crooks, Kohlben Vodden, Lesley Bunch, Lewis Brown, Liesa BACCHUS, Liron Kroll, Lisa Pettibone, M.YUCAS ART (Sharon Cababie), Malcolm Tait, Mandy Williams, Manuel Ursprung, Marion Mandeng, Marni Saunders, Matilda Aylward, Mengying Yang, Michael Slusakowicz, Ming Gao, Nahraine Al-Khafaji, Nelson Hernandez, Paula Fitzsimons, Prapat Jiwarangsan, QIUXIANG LIU (Rainy Tong), Richard P Jones, Rona Bar and Ofek Avshalom, Rush Drayton, Shaolin Zhong, Sonia Martin, Sujin Park, Tamara Ustenko, Victor Guerin, Wonyoung Shim, Yasemin Gunhos, Yuna Yu, Zhijie Zhang
Cesare Lucchini (gallery rosenfeld), Enrique Brinkmann (gallery rosenfeld), Ndidi Emefiele (gallery rosenfeld)
Jiahe Sui (Young Artist Project), Jiaxi Han (Young Artist Project), Xianglin Lyu (Young Artist Project), Zhenxuan Huang (Young Artist Project)
12th September – 19th September 2025
Gallery 4, Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York's HQ, King’s Road,London, SW3 4RY
The London Art Collective (LAC) was founded in London in 2018 and offers more than 20 exhibitions featuring over 100 British artists.LAC launched a global programme to support young artists and foster emerging talent by partnering with over 30 galleries across the UK, providing increased exposure through galleries and art magazines, including Tate Etc., V&A Magazine, Frieze, and Sotheby's.
As an official partner of the London Design Festival, LAC assumes the mantle of curatorship with an annual flair, each iteration exceeding expectations. LAC's 2023 exhibition, "On Purple: The Purpose of Hue”, was awarded the top exhibition in the Mayfair district. In 2024, LAC collaborated with the Saatchi Gallery for the 22nd London Design Festival exhibition.
Chief Curator: Nelson Qin
Project Manager: Daisy Guo
Executive Curator: Ziyi Xiong, Fang Liu (Summer)
Assistant Curator: Lanzhi Zhang, Ruoru Wang, Yan Xie,