Plaster is excited to present The Radar, a new group exhibition featuring Nana Wolke, Lucas Dupuy, Fern O’Carolan, Katie Shannon, Lily Bloom, Bertie Garnett, Holly Lou Jones, Kevin Brennan, Claudia Martignetti, Ada Bond and Shauna Cribbin.

The show features a selection of artists from our online series of the same name – a monthly feature that spotlights some of our favourite rising stars in visual art. The series kicked off in January 2024 and has grown into one of our most popular features, including painters, performers, sculptors, illustrators, filmmakers and multidisciplinary artists from across the globe.

The exhibition includes a rhinestoned Missy Elliott tyre by Shauna Cribbin, chainmail and prayer cushion purses by Fern O’Carolan, a haunting painting from soon-to-be Slade graduate Ada Bond, intricate new resin work from Bertie Garnett, and more. We spoke to the artists to get the lowdown on some of the works on show.

Lily Bloom

What do you love most about the work?

Watching people dance around her to make her move.

If this work could teleport to any place in the world, where would it go?

The Haunted Mansion at Disney World.

Kevin Brennan

What music did you listen to when you made this work? 

No music, just the sound of a humming light, which soon made its way into the piece.

What’s your favorite memory associated with the work?

A strange (and fun) trip to Lanzarote, where the piece was shot.

Shauna Cribbin

How long did it take to make this piece?

This piece was made over a 3-month period. I hand-stoned the face with about 14,000 rhinestones, so it is definitely a labour of love. It may seem like a monotonous process but it gave me space to sit still and listen to music. I’m addicted to that feeling when something that took a lot of hard graft is complete.

What music did you listen to when you made it?

Of course I had to listen to Missy while staring like an insane bitch at her for months. Late night sessions were mostly consumed by soulful house. Angie Stone passed while I was making this piece, so Wish I Didn’t Miss You was played countless times.

Lucas Dupuy

What do you love most about the work?

The green tones.

If this work could teleport to any place in the world, where would it go?

A forest in rural Sweden.

Bertie Garnett

How long did it take to make this piece?

The source of the painting originally derives from an image I took in Athens in 2022 from a viewpoint on the Acropolis looking over the city. The shape of the skyline and the light hitting the buildings looked like a CPU board. I modified the image using generative AI and formed the painting through a process of layering oil and acrylic spanning the course of a few weeks. I revisited it a couple of times.

What do you love most about the work?

I like that the process of making this piece took place over a long period of time, involving different mediums and iterations. I feel like the value in making an art object is when it comes to retain so much experience and becomes a kind of artefact.

Holly Lou Jones

How long did it take to make this piece?

40 days and 40 nights.

What’s your favorite memory associated with the work?

This work was actually what got me out of a big creative slump last year, so it is super special to me. It had been a year since I graduated and was working three different jobs and just wasn’t giving myself the time to breathe, let alone create. Hook Up was born in my studio with this metal frame that I had welded at ani and a piece of latex I painted that day. It truly reignited this drive to find consistent time to make, despite the craziness of London living right now.

Nana Wolke

How long did it take to make this piece?

A lifetime and the length of a breath at the same time.

What music did you listen to when you made it?

I was actually devouring Miranda July’s All Fours audiobook – what a masterpiece!!

If this work could teleport to any place in the world, where would it go?

In the arms of my lover.

Claudia Martignetti

What’s your favorite memory associated with the work? Were you doing something exciting or memorable around the time you were making it?

I would never be caught doing anything exciting or memorable x

What do you love most about the work? 

Billy. Bear. Ham!!!

Katie Shannon

Were you doing anything exciting around the time you were making this piece?

I was at the end of a Master’s degree, smoking a lot.

What do you love most about the work?

Aside from being what it is alone, the weight of it acts as a dramaturgical device – it makes you move in a certain way, with some difficulty, so the work is really what it does to the person who carries it with them.

Ada Bond

What’s your favorite memory associated with the work?

I was staying after hours at Slade, and I hid in the cupboard in the wall so that the security wouldn’t throw me out when they did their nightly sweep. That’s always exhilarating in a slightly tragic way.

What do you love most about the work?

The decisive kitschness. I’m always reassured by the thought that it would belong in my grandma’s bungalow.

If this work could teleport to any place in the world, where would it go? 

Clissold Park, maybe on a bench near the deer enclosure. Somewhere it could sit and watch, get rained on, and confuse people on their way to Pilates.

Fern O’Carolan

What’s your favourite memory associated with the work?

Probably the day I found my old memory box in Dublin — full of teenage relics like love notes, photo booth strips, burned CDs. It was both hilarious and weirdly moving. That moment shifted how I approached the piece — it gave me a sense of permission to be both serious and a bit sentimental.

What do you love most about the work?

I like how it holds contradiction. It’s soft but sharp. It has humour and sadness living inside. It’s femme but not polite. Sentimental but a little bit sinister.