Lustre, an exhibition by London-based painter, Sebastián Espejo (b.1990, Chile), presented alongside works by Pierre Bonnard at Interval Gallery, Clerkenwell. As well as Japanese woodblock prints by Hokusai and Hiroshige, artists whom both Espejo and Bonnard frequently reference.
Just above the horizon line, in the dense riverine thicket, is a tiny flag – its blue, white and red stripes the rare exclamation of vertical marks in the shimmering, fluvial scene. In the middle distance, a blur of rowers, but it is the water that holds all our attention: fresh, lucent tones reflect the wondrous expanse of a cloudless summer sky. Then we notice the striped planks of a small wooden jetty in the foreground, where an elegantly clad woman stands looking out at the river, above a crouched figure tending to the empty boats. Our gaze follows hers, back to the water, so sensuous and beguiling where forms seem to coalesce and vanish in constant flux.
Lustre: Sebastián Espejo & Pierre Bonnard
All of this I am trying to memorise, and faithfully store this scene in the library of recollection – not only because it is beautiful, but because I might never see this painting again. The work, ‘The Regatta’ (c. 1896) by one of the greatest colourists of all time, the French painter Pierre Bonnard, who with Sérusier, Maurice Denis, Édouard Vuillard and others formed the Nabis, an artistic brotherhood based on Gauguin’s theories. It hangs opposite a suite of intimate paintings by the London-based, Chilean-born painter Sebastián Espejo, in an exhibition appropriately entitled Lustre at Interval Gallery, in association with Wildenstein & Co.
Immaculately spotlit, like a pearl among precious things, this exhibition’s power lies in its simplicity. Lustre celebrates the power of art to act on our imagination, to draw us back to itself repeatedly, like the river. By placing the well-known beside the lesser-known, it pays homage whilst also elevating the emergent – as though these works had been plucked from the endless, unknowable, and often difficult-to-navigate stream of images that surround us, and had been momentarily given pause. Painting in the genre of still life, Espejo’s work is both figuratively and literally a meditation on the flickering impossibility of stillness. As these gentle, shape-shifting works attest, a painting’s surface resembles that of water. A mirror that absorbs and reflects the light, it only suggests what lies beneath, whilst also showing us a part of ourselves.
Lustre at Interval, installation image by Jack Elliot Edwards. Courtesy of Interval, Sebastián Espajo, Jessica Draper, Wildenstein & Co.
Looking at a painting by Espejo is like hearing a whisper. We lean in. We perceive the outline of things vaguely familiar: a collection of small, pale vessels in Rocas en el Mar (rocks at sea), 2025, and The Woodcutter, 2025, the occasional stem in La inclinacion del verano, 2025, or Ten Thousand Things, 2025, a window opening that might also be the frame of another painting (Pescar del noche, 2025; Escena con marina, 2025, and Dog Star, 2025). Although figures are absent, each painting holds a presence, as if the person who arranged all the elements has vanished. In his catalogue essay for the show, Luis Pérez-Oramas, a Venezuelan art historian and poet, suggests “… that Espejo is addressing, if intuitively, the double status of images as both stable presences and potential realities yet to become, surging from the uncontrolled dynamism of memory.”
In recollecting the works from this exhibition, I feel an enchantment. Espejo’s paintings are now tethered to a light that bounces between Bonnard’s exquisite depiction of flowing water and the silver crescent of a tiny moon – barely perceptible –, but there like a reward for those who take a moment to pause before his paintings and witness their transcendent lustre (New Moon, 2025). “Espejo’s oils on wood, notably those exhibited in this show, are thus brilliant heterochronic compositions,” says Pérez-Oramas, effusing poetry in response, “under one gaze, they feature multiple co-existing temporalities. Two salient aspects related to this dimension seem noticeable: the masterful delicacy of Espejo’s brushstrokes, the velvety accuracy of his bodegones inhabited by minute objects, shining on their surface like metaphysical landscapes, and the voluntary decision to bring the work of previous, old masters, in the form of rough, schematic, spectral poetic renditions.” It is an extraordinary show.
Interval, founded in 2025 by father and son David and Jacob Gryn, is a small but perfectly curated space dedicated to bringing leading contemporary artists work together with historic artworks, exploring aesthetic dialogues, ideas and connections between the works and their eras. Housed in a recently renovated 1790s Georgian townhouse at 73 Compton Street, Clerkenwell, London, the gallery has become a destination, but also a symbol of creative resilience in challenging times.
Nico Kos Earle
Independent Curator/ Writer
Lustre: Sebastián Espejo & Pierre Bonnard, 24th January – 28th March 2026, Interval Gallery, Clerkenwell
Visit Here