Rule of Thumb investigates the systems of discipline and authority that shape the human body. Bringing together four artists working across painting, sculpture, and installation, the exhibition examines how power is naturalised through physical presence.

Presented at SET Lewisham as part of the Associate Members Programme, the exhibition is co-curated by the participating artists.

About the exhibition

The exhibition takes its title from the idiom “rule of thumb”, a phrase denoting approximate measurement famously, if controversially, linked to a legal loophole for domestic violence. Rule of Thumb uses this etymology as a point of departure to explore how power is mapped onto the body within both domestic and institutional spheres.

Throughout the space, symbols of power are rendered as bodily objects: bodybuilders flex alongside legal iconography and heraldry; armour-like structures offer a tense balance of protection and restraint; and garments hang like evidence, relics or unresolved testimonies.

By deconstructing these forms, Rule of Thumb draws attention to the hidden codes of conduct that dictate movement and behaviour. The works invite us to consider how the body carries the weight of these systems, and how the traces of authority remain visible even in the aftermath of an event.

Event details

Public opening event: Friday 15 May, 6-9pm
Weekend opening hours: Saturday 16 & Sunday 17 May, 12-5pm
Weekday viewings: Thursday 14, Friday 15, and Monday 18 May (By appointment only)
Appointments: To book a weekday viewing, please contact phoebe.ea.randall@gmail.com
Location: SET Lewisham, Unit 1, Lewisham Retail Park, SE13 7RZ
Admission: Free

Contributing artists

Emilia Auersperg

Emilia Auersperg works with readymade fragments gathered through chance encounters in urban environments. Her work explores objecthood as a way of thinking through consumer culture, bodily discipline, and the shifting boundaries between human and nonhuman agency. Through processes of deconstruction andassemblage, discarded objects are transformed from passive commodities into charged sites, exposing social, symbolic, and political afterlives embedded within material culture.

Instagram: @emiliaauersperg

Jiyoung Pyo

Informed by collective memory, personal experience, and found imagery, Jiyoung Pyo’s practice engages with cultural forms, power dynamics, and moral ambiguity through an expanded multimedia approach centred around painting. Her work explores psychological states and the ways individual experience intersects with broader social and historical narratives. At its core, the practice investigates vulnerability and power, the seen and unseen, and the unstable boundaries between them, creating layered and emotionally charged spaces where viewers may feel exposed and implicated.

Phoebe Randall

Phoebe Randall translates photographs of performance and human spectacle into oil paintings on canvas. Recent works examine demonstrations of masculinity, heroism and violence staged under the guise of sportsmanship. Working selectively from her source material, she remains only partially faithful to the original image. In doing so, she unsettles the choreography of conflict and the performative mechanics of violence embedded in Western painting traditions. She is particularly interested in the theatrics of rivalry, from arena sports to the social ‘arenas’ where our identity and power relations are at stake.

Instagram: @phoebe.randall

Florence Sweeney

Florence Sweeney is a London-based artist whose practice spans sculpture, photography, moving image and textiles. Her work interrogates the intersection of personal history and societal injustices surrounding the representation of women, delving into themes of memory, loss, and familial injury while searching for meaning within the complexities of contemporary life.

Instagram: @florencesweeney

About SET’s Associate Members Programme

This exhibition is presented as part of SET’s Associate Members Programme, which offers artists studio space alongside access to project spaces and opportunities to independently curate exhibitions, workshops, and events.

The programme supports a wide range of practices, from performance and installation to music, sound, print, and textiles, and is designed to provide space, visibility, and development opportunities for early-career and underrepresented artists working in London.

Poster design: Phoebe Randall