The figures in Von Wolfe‘s paintings do not explain themselves. They offer no easy entry, no familiar gesture of welcome. They are present, composed, entire unto themselves - and in that self-containment lies their quiet authority.

Simone Weil wrote that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity: not the strained concentration of the will, but a kind of suspension, a waiting in which the soul empties itself in order to receive. The figures gathered across these fourteen works inhabit precisely that state - a complete stillness that reads not as passivity but as concentrated attention, an emotional restraint that signifies strength rather than absence. Women hold roses, command animals, stand beside artificial constructions of their own making, ride through impossible gardens. Whatever the action or setting, the underlying posture is constant: a figure who contains rather than expresses, who holds rather than releases, whose silence is full.

Join us at our opening reception: 6-8pm, 10 July (Fri)

Gallery address: 10/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central