The Director’s Cut: Battersea Spring 2026
Ahead of Affordable Art Fair Battersea Spring, 4 – 8 March 2026, we asked Fair Director Hugo Barclay to share his must-see artists and galleries!
Hugo Barclay
Tuesday 10 February, 2026
Katie Mawson, For Love, 30 x 50 cm, Quantum Contemporary Art
With Affordable Art Fair Battersea (4 – 8 March) fast approaching, we asked Fair Director Hugo Barclay to take us through some of his personal art highlights. Here’s what caught his eye!
We’re delighted to be returning to Battersea Park for another brilliant edition in just a matter of weeks. There’s so much to look forward to! This year’s spring edition brings together 115 contemporary galleries from 16 countries and 1,000s of artworks. It’d be impossible to mention them all, but here are a few I’m looking out for…
Katie Mawson, Quantum Contemporary Art
Katie Mawson is an artist from the Lake District who works with old, often damaged book covers and bits of cloth. She takes these worn fragments and gently cuts, rips, stitches, and pieces them back together, letting them find a new shape and life. There’s a sense that she’s gathering stories that were almost lost (traces of ownership, fingerprints, faded colours) and holding them together long enough for something new to emerge. Her work caught my eye not just because it’s visually calming and beautiful, but because there’s a quiet symbolism in the act of rescuing and reimagining what was nearly thrown away.
Melisa Teo, Y Art Project
Melisa Teo is a Paris-based Singaporean photographer whose practice explores the threshold between the visible and invisible. She uses her camera like a third eye, playing with light, shadow, and layered exposure to create images that border on the symbolic, attempting to capture spiritual communities or sensory worlds that elude ordinary perception.
Since 2008, Teo has travelled extensively through spiritual communities, from Buddhist and Hindu sites in Asia to Afro-Caribbean Santería rituals in Latin America, observing how individuals seek meaning, healing, and transcendence through faith. These journeys have become the foundation of major bodies of work, including Light From Within and Dark Light, where she explores the interplay between ritual and devotion.
Lammert de Jong, Galerie Helligkeit
Lammert de Jong’s work tends to circle around human presence: the little gestures, the in-between moments, the way someone shifts their weight or hesitates before moving on. He shoots mainly on analogue film, and you can feel that in the images; there’s a kind of physicality and unpredictability he doesn’t try to smooth out. He seems drawn to moments where something is changing but not quite settled yet. He captures those small pockets of ambiguity or transition. The photographs don’t try to be definitive or documentary; they feel more like trying to catch a vulnerable moment before it slips away again.
Irvine Peacock, Portal Painters
Irvine Peacock’s practice operates within the lineage of British Surrealism, yet his work feels distinctly personal. He takes everyday objects and recombines them into dreamlike scenes. He’s interested in myths, folklore, and the idea that everything has a hidden identity. I find his paintings invite me to decode symbolic relationships, or perhaps stage encounters that question how meaning is constructed and how “the real” is socially conditioned. A playful yet philosophical tone that makes you want to take one home.
Craig Jefferson, Franklin Gallery
Craig Jefferson’s figurative works draw from immediate surroundings (family life, familiar objects, local landscapes) transforming the ordinary into poetic meditations on presence and perception. His figurative paintings often engage with themes of community, embodiment, and quiet moments observing and understanding the profound qualities of the world around us. His paintings are rich in colour, textures, and bold marks, giving you a sense that he paints how his subjects feel, not just how they look.
Thanks so much to Fair Director Hugo Barclay for sharing his highlights! All of these artworks and many more will be available to see and purchase at Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Spring, 4 – 8 March 2026.
Book online today for advanced ticket prices.
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