Animistic Wonder

23rd January - 27th January 2026

Joseph Wales Studios

This exhibition at Joseph Wales Studios in Margate debuts a cycle of new paintings by Kieran Rook, experimenting with surreal narratives that unfold intuitively on the canvas

Open 11am - 6pm

Surreal narratives that unfold intuitively on the canvas, depicting bodies, animals, and hybrids in dream-like scenarios and disorienting spatial compositions.

Rook reimagines fragments extracted from his inner life whilst envisioning worlds within worlds that bear uncanny resemblance to our own.

Rook’s psychologically layered, deliberately enigmatic works blur reality and fiction, past and present.

His paintings operate through symbolism and analogy.

Images hint, echo, and stand in for emotional states.

Extending the language of the picture beyond the canvas, Rook also constructs the frames himself, treating them as an integral part of the work.

At times, three-dimensional elements emerge within or from the painted surface, heightening the sense of liminal space and deepening the work’s shadowed melancholia, as if each scene is suspended in a transitory, dreamlike psychical state.

Part of Off Season 2026

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Location

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Address

Animistic Wonder Joseph Wales Studios, 2a Dane Hill, Margate
CT9 1QP

Contact

josephwalesstudios@gmail.com 07971 621811

Links

Website