Public opening event: Thursday 22 October, 6-9pm
Exhibition dates: 23 October – 1 November
Opening hours: Daily, 12-6pm
Location: SET Lewisham, Unit 1, Lewisham Retail Park, Loampit Vale, London, SE13 7RZ
Artists: Alfie Sellers, Isla Jones, Katie Gordon, Keziah Mornin, Lâl Yılmaz, Lily Hall, Octavia Inns, Soul Baraitser, Thomas Houlihan
Admission: Free

Bringing together nine artists whose practices share a foundation of drawing and close observation, What Is It That We Are Looking For presents work informed by transformation, looking at reality from a distance – or through a microscope – through a veil of memory, fiction, and the unknown. The exhibition explores the feeling of reaching out and then moving closer, looking beyond what is immediately visible toward the unseen or overlooked. Fragmentary moments and fleeting encounters become suspended, then start to shapeshift until they are almost unrecognisable. The longer we look, the more things seem to change.

Across the works, common threads emerge in atmosphere and in the space between the familiar and the faraway; in encountering one another and our surroundings, and in the ambiguity of everyday experience. Within the exhibition, individual practices come into dialogue, exploring both intimate and encompassing scales and a range of material processes, all whilst holding onto a shared preoccupation with strange beauty and nonlinear narratives.

Contributing artists

Alfie Sellers

Through predominantly sculpture and drawing Alfie Sellers’ practice reflects on toys and artefacts, chronology and yearning, sci-fi and the day-to-day, and how fiction and genre leak into real life.

Instagram: @alfiesellers

Isla Jones

In her work, Isla Jones explores dreamscapes and imagined futures that make space for the figure to be depicted unusually, often through a sense of mutation, fragmentation and distortion.

Instagram: @strangeisland
Website: islajones.co.uk

Katie Gordon

Katie Gordon’s work centres around grief and sickness, hoping to shed light on topics like caregiving and terminal illness.

Instagram: @katiegordon_
Website: katiegordon.myportfolio.com

Keziah Mornin

Keziah Mornin uses cinematic devices to frame narratives and reveries from her own life. She’s interested in conveying a tangible atmosphere, inviting the viewer to pause for a moment with her.

Instagram: @morninkeziah

Lâl Yılmaz

Lâl Yılmaz views the process of image making as almost alchemical, revealing layers of thought and emotion that emerge from the subconscious. Through an evolving archive of symbols, she creates worlds that are at once intimate and vast, familiar yet strange.

Instagram: @lalyilmaz

Lily Hall

Lily Hall’s work is rooted in atmospheric storytelling and the unknown, translating in-between spaces like thresholds and crossroads into charged and dreamlike environments.

Instagram: @l.hall_art

Octavia Inns

Octavia Inns explores observations of the everyday through memory and imagination, alongside figurative elements and presences that visualise the feeling of being in a particular space at a particular time.

Instagram: @octaviainnsart
Website: octaviainns.com

Soul Baraitser

Soul Baraitser’s work engages with the unconscious, dreams and nightmares, and how such psychological phenomena might be given material form. The imagery often centres ambiguous groupings caught in dramatic yet uncertain events.

Instagram: @soulbaraitser

Thomas Houlihan

Thomas Houlihan’s practice is rooted in drawing from observation and memory, allowing lived experience to serve as a starting point to craft imagined scenes of the absurd and wonderful in the everyday.

Instagram: @tomhoulihan_
Website: thomashoulihan.com

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 or participate 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.

Artwork featured on poster by Soul Baraitser.