Gallery
Opera Gallery London
65 - 66 New Bond Street W1S 1RW
Date
5 March – 6 April 2026
Mon – Sat: 10 am - 6:30 pm
Sun: 12 pm - 5 pm
‘Dreaming in Colour’ marks a defining moment for Opera Gallery London, presenting a vibrant chapter focused on emerging artists whose practices are reshaping the visual and conceptual landscape of contemporary art. Bringing together twenty-four international voices, the exhibition reflects Opera Gallery’s ongoing commitment to discovery, experimentation, and the nurturing of new talent. In an era of rapid shifts in visual culture, this new generation reminds us that creativity continues to be fuelled by the timeless territory of dreams.
Represented artists
The exhibition brings together represented artists whose practices engage with the language of dreams through colour, symbolism, and psychological intensity. Thomas Dillon’s raw, fragmented figures tap into the subconscious as a site of tension and transformation, while Adrien Navarro explores perception and spatial ambiguity, suspending the viewer between reality and reverie. Cristina Babiloni translates memory and emotional states into intimate, lyrical compositions, as Miguel Sainz Ojeda employs expressive figuration and saturated colour to evoke dreamlike, hallucinatory scenes. Gustavo Nazareno draws on myth and ancestral memory to merge the personal with the collective unconscious, and Xevi Solà’s poetic visual language gently dissolves the boundary between figuration and abstraction, inviting quiet contemplation where dream and waking life converge.
Exhibited artworks of our represented artists
— Giulia Lecchini, Deputy Director of Opera Gallery London
Invited artists
The invited artists featured in ‘Dreaming in Colour’ represent a diverse and dynamic cross-section of contemporary painting and sculpture, united by an intuitive engagement with imagination, emotion, and inner worlds. Working across figuration and abstraction, their practices explore themes of identity, memory, mythology, and perception, often unfolding through heightened colour, symbolic narratives, and dream-inflected atmospheres. Together, these emerging voices bring a spirit of experimentation and curiosity to the exhibition, offering fresh perspectives that blur the boundaries between reality and reverie while reflecting the complexity and fluidity of contemporary visual culture.
Exhibited artworks of our invited artists
Arjen
Dutch painter Arjen creates surreal, minimalist compositions where the human figure dissolves into abstracted forms and organic cubism. His smooth gradients, deconstructed bodies, and subtle humour evoke a quiet tension, balancing psychological depth with visual restraint, situating his work at the intersection of minimalism and surrealism.
Mattia Barbalaco (b. 1999)
Italian painter from Vibo Valentia, Calabria, Mattia Barbalaco graduated with distinction in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Drawing on his skills as a puppeteer, he creates theatrical, symbolically charged scenes populated with birds, animals, and enigmatic props, where multiple narrative threads unfold in uncanny, emotionally rich compositions.
Marcelo Canevari (b. 1984)
Argentinian painter Marcelo Canevari blends figuration and uncanny surrealism in open-ended compositions that evoke both familiarity and mystery. Raised working under his father, a scientific illustrator, his work retains an observational precision even as it flirts with the poetic and the strange.
Jonni Cheatwood (b. 1986)
American–Brazilian artist Jonni Cheatwood builds his canvases as quilt-like, sewn assemblages of denim, burlap, and found textiles, overlaid with gestural paint to explore memory and identity. His abstract-figurative work dissolves conventional portraiture by veiling faces and constructing textured narratives of personal history.
Borja Colom (b. 1998)
Borja Colom is a Madrid-born architect-artist whose paintings dissolve the line between space and surface, transforming his canvases into threshold-like windows where light, architecture, and colour meet. His work draws on his formal study in architecture to create compositions of spatial tension and minimalist conceptual poetics.
Andy Dixon (b. 1979)
Former musician turned painter, Vancouver-based Andy Dixon crafts lush, candy-coloured scenes that question the ties between art, wealth, and collectability. With a self-aware twist, his work riffs on luxury objects and asks: is art a pinnacle of culture or just another commodity?
Caroline Larsen (b. 1980)
Canadian-born Caroline Larsen squeezes thick oil paint through pastry bags to “pipe” vivid floral still lifes and decorative vases in exuberant, textile-like compositions. Her work reimagines traditional still-life genres with a maximalist texture that feels both crafted and lushly organic.
Oh de Laval (b. 1990)
Oh de Laval, a painter of Polish–Thai heritage, creates seductive, psychologically charged figurative works influenced by film noir and French New Wave cinema. Guided by a fierce, instinct-driven manifesto, she embraces hedonism, risk, and raw self-expression to capture the murky desires that shape human behaviour.
Maurice Mboa (b. 1983)
Cameroonian-born Maurice Mboa is a Geneva-based artist known for his distinctive technique of engraving painted metal sheets with a handmade glass tool. Rooted in the spiritual teachings of his grandmother, a traditional healer, his work explores the boundary between the visible and the invisible. Mboa’s faceless “soulprints”, figures that radiate presence without identity, reflect his belief that emotion and memory exist beyond physical form. His practice blends abstraction, symbolism, and a deep sense of ancestry.
Collins Obijiaku (b. 1995)
Self-taught Nigerian painter Collins Obijiaku creates intimate, textured portraits of Black men and women, layering oil, acrylic, and charcoal in expressive, cartographic linework. Through his piercing gazes and subtly mapped faces, he explores identity, heritage, and the emotional terrain of his community.
Anna Ortiz (b. 1979)
Mexican-American painter Anna Ortiz creates symbolic, dream-inflected landscapes that weave together ancient myth, migration, and personal identity. Her work addresses the dualities of heritage and belonging through invented terrains that echo both memory and cultural hybridity.
Camilla Perkins (b. 1990)
Camilla Perkins is a British painter and illustrator from East Sussex whose vibrant, dreamlike works use colour as a language of memory. Her garden scenes, sun-drenched getaways, and stylised figures feel like portals, inviting viewers into emotionally resonant moments from life’s softest corners.
Daniella Portillo (b. 1997)
Daniella Portillo was born in 1997 in San Salvador and now resides in Jersey City. Her paintings delve into the intricacies of space, time, and memory. Ranging from pastoral to urban environments infused with tropical warmth, through techniques involving scraping and deteriorating the painting surface.
Verapat Sitipol (b. 1980)
Verapat Sitipol is a Thai painter whose abstract canvases of rhythmic lines and shimmering colour-fields emerge directly from his deep bond with nature—especially the forests and waterfalls of his homeland. He uses background starts and vibrant hues to evoke the cyclical energy of life and the spiritual interconnection of all things.
Alex Sutcliffe
Alex Sutcliffe, born in Chicago in 1997, lives and works in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. After graduating in Visual Arts from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in 2020, he quickly established himself as a rising voice on the contemporary art scene.
Grace Tobin (b. 1993)
Grace Tobin is a British artist whose soft, atmospheric interiors and lush gardens explore how personal history and emotional perception shape the spaces we inhabit. Her richly patterned paintings balance repetition and absence to reveal psychological landscapes of home, memory, and identity.
May Watson (b. 1996)
London-based May Watson is a graphic artist whose vibrant compositions merge pattern, illustration, and contemporary decorative aesthetics. Her colour-rich work bursts with optimism, offering playful yet refined visual simplicity.
Sasha Zimulin (b. 1975)
Russian-born abstract painter Sasha Zimulin combines elements of Suprematism, Magical Realism, and Art Deco. Born in Moscow during the twilight of the Soviet era, Zimulin developed a reflective and chameleonic artistic sensibility. After arriving in Barcelona in 2002, he refined his technique under mentors including Cuco Morales and Ramón Lombarte. His work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Spain, exploring texture, luminosity, and the transformative possibilities of canvas.