46: Artist: YULIA ROBINSON. Red installation at Cultivate, Vyner Street (2011)

The brilliant late afternoon light you get at this time of year in Hackney and East London makes it rather difficult not to think about the Autumn eight years ago when Cultivate first got off the ground. one of the very first (rather rushed) shows we put on was a group show called Red and one of the artists involved was Yulia Robinson, it was our first encounter with Yulia, we found her via an open call (as we have done with many of our artists who have now become regulars), Yulia took up over half the gallery floor with a rather exciting rather red installation piece that still remains a Cultivate highlight, since then Yulia has returned on a number of occasions to take part in group shows in Vyner Street, over in Dalston at BSMT Space, Shipton Street and that time when she exhibited two rather large painting at that one-off show at Coate Studios back in 2017 – a big group show called Interact that we managed to put on during the weekend that Coate was in transition and changing hands, the studios had just closed and it was about to be refurbished and converted to become yet another of those hot desk rent by the day spaces that have sucked up so much of East London.

123: YULIA ROBINSON – Flamingos Gold – 150x120cm, acrylic on canvas.

Yulia will be back with us in late November for a solo show as part of our latest month-long Columbia Road takeover I’m rather enjoying Yulia’s evolving style, her painterly developement, her flamingoes, her corsets, her vivid colour, the energy of her mark making. We ran an interview with Yulia on our sister Organ website back in March