New art gallery opens in Blackfriars Road

It is housed in, and backed by, an established commercial business, pledged to provide support to enable artists to achieve their potential.

The inaugural exhibition Cross Section is shows a selection of this year's graduate work from the RCA, RA Schools, the Slade and Central St Martins.

"We are delighted to be working with such talented emerging artists at the early stages of their careers," says curator Alex Fox.

"Cross Section allows unrepresented graduates to showcase a variety of forms of art arising from an array of inspirations.

"Blackfriars Road is an unusual concept as the gallery is housed in the premises of an existing commercial business.

"With the challenging economic environment and a number of government spending cuts we are able to offer support and potential residency to talented, early stage artists."

Clients of the sponsor, Rivington Street Corporate Finance, attended a preview evening during which five pieces were sold.

Work includes printmaking by Olenna Mokliak whose distinctive work includes a Stepping into the Night etching.

In the basement is a darkened room where Bea Haines's 'Heavenly Bodies' series of lightboxes of gallstones are found. Showing in another room is Peter Sant's 16mm film Mare Libervm which is described as 'a meditation on Grotius's treatise on the laws of the sea' and features an exotic Mediterranean fish catch.

Also below, but framed, are Fahd Burki's pictographic paintings and Claire Bayliss's garden rock formations.

Cross Section is at the Blackfriars Road gallery, 90-91 Blackfriars Road; Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; until Friday 10 September.