Exhibition - Real Artists Sweat

Tiderip presents Real Artists Sweat, a group exhibition that reimagines value, scale and accessibility within contemporary art. The exhibition invites artists to engage with a fixed threshold of value, a conceptual limit inspired by the economy of labour and the lived conditions of creative work.

The idea originates from the reality that many art workers in London begin their careers with modest monthly earnings. Translating this into an exhibition framework, Real Artists Sweat questions how worth is constructed, measured and exchanged, not only in monetary terms but through time, care and creative effort. The project positions art as a site where labour and value can be renegotiated, where gestures of making become acts of reflection on the systems that sustain them.

Real Artists Sweat invites artists across disciplines to consider limitation as an open field rather than a restriction. What happens when artistic value is viewed through the lens of labour, or when price becomes metaphor rather than metric?

In keeping with Tiderip’s curatorial ethos, the exhibition brings together practices that speak across painting, sculpture, textile, photography and mixed media. These works are intimate yet resonant, accessible yet conceptually rigorous, revealing how ideas of value may shift when seen through the intertwined lenses of work, time and care.

Featuring Artists

Alexandra Baraitser (b. 1971, Cape Town, South Africa) lives and works in Cambridge and London, U.K. She recently was joint winner of The People's Choice Award and was Highly Commended for the Young Masters Woman’s Art Award at the Young Masters Art Prize (2025), and has exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (2025, 2024) and Kettle’s Yard (2019). Earlier awards include the Abbey Scholarship in Painting at the British School at Rome (1996–97), the NatWest Art Prize finalist (1998), and exhibitions at the Barbican Centre Galleries (1996) and the John Moores Painting Prize (1996).

Her paintings draw on 20th-century modernist design, the Bauhaus movement, and 1950s interiors. Using magazine clippings and photography as sources, she builds images on a white ground with thin layers of oil paint, creating glossy, translucent surfaces. While rooted in figuration, her work has gradually shifted from photorealism toward abstraction, emphasising light, shade, and fluid brushwork.

Neal Camilleri is a contemporary ceramic and sculptural artist whose work explores memory, narrative, and the transformation of materials. Drawing on personal experiences and vibrant painterly influences, he creates artwork that is poetic and subtly surreal. Working across ceramics and acrylic, his practice bridges past and present, inviting viewers to uncover the hidden stories within his work.

“A deeply personal series inspired by childhood memories of my grandmother’s house, a place of wonder filled with dark Victorian furniture and lion footed details that sparked my imagination. Each sculpture reimagines those familiar objects such as sweet jars, key boxes, and trinket holders, transforming them into vessels of memory that celebrate the quiet magic and joy found in every corner of her home.”

Michael Gao (b. 2002, Beijing, China) is a painter living and working in London. He explores social dynamics, identity, violence and desire, placing these themes in the ever-changing context of contemporary visual culture. Gao casts domesticated animals as a counterpoint to human tension — a figure of primal detachment amid socially coded behaviour. He uses fine airbrush techniques combined with loose oil brushstrokes to create realistic yet surreal compositions, flattening the space to evoke a sense of claustrophobia. With the subtle staging of dominance, threat, or exclusion, Gao subverts the expectation of violence and instead uses the animal as a strange mirror: instinctively present, yet curiously disconnected from the drama we choreograph around it.
Using animal and human imagery, Gao reimagines carnival as a post-internet space. This setting further deepens the contrast between reality and fantasy, the familiar and the alien. In this series of works, the carnival world becomes a lens to explore how desire has become performative and ritualistic in the Internet age - it can both connect people and isolate them, both elevate and constrain them.

Xinyu Han (b.1998) was born and raised in Shanghai, China, and is currently based in London, UK. Xinyu graduated with an MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Art in London in 2024. She received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2020. Xinyu's work has been exhibited in Zurich, London, New York, Beijing and Shanghai. Her recent solo shows include "At the still point of the turning world”, 2025, Modern Animals Gallery, Zurich"; Dancing on the Line," ,2023, Gene Gallery, Shanghai. Her recent group shows include "Betwixt", 2025, General Assembly Gallery, London; "SUPERCROWS/SUPERCOMMUNITY", 2024, TANK Shanghai, Shanghai.

Lily Hargreaves (b. 2000) is a painter based in London. She graduated from Goldsmiths with a BA in Fine Art in 2022 and from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Painting in 2024, the latter selecting her work as its annual painting acquisition. She has also previously been awarded the Tooth Travelling Scholarship and the BAGT Open Founder’s Prize, been a finalist for the ACS Studio Prize and Valerie Beston Prize, and been shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize.

Julius Killerby was born in Perth, Australia, in 1995 but lives and works in London. His work focuses primarily on the relationship between abstract notions and their tangible effects on people, culture and society. Through motifs such as indecipherable script, rorschach patterns and figures being tortured, Killerby attempts to convey the power that ideas have to shape the physical realm. This subject, and variations of it, encapsulates what he believes to be most distinct about humanity - the ability to transcend physical instincts based on abstract thought. He asserts that "For every action in the universe there is of course an equal and opposite reaction, except within the realm of human life and interactions." Though apparently secular images, these works would then seem to belong to traditions of Christian iconography and martyrdom. They are also, as Killerby states, "... apt images for the 21st century."

Killerby has shown at the VCA Art Space, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, The Art Gallery of Ballarat, Norito Gallery, JGM Gallery, and Lumen Gallery, amongst others, and has sold work throughout Australia and the United Kingdom. Previous sitters for Killerby include the former Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Ron Walker AC CBE, Paul Little AO, Julian Burnside KC, Robert Richter KC and Brendan Murphy KC.

Tiyana Mitchell (b. 2001) is an American/ Jordanian artist. Mitchell is currently based in London where she is working towards her Masters in Painting at the Royal College of Art. Mitchell holds a dual degree from Parsons School of Design and Eugene Lang College, in Fine Arts and History, a combination of which provides the groundwork to her painting practice. She is interested in archival research and history, which is built upon in her painting which draws from her experience working with her family’s archive.

Rowena Liangru Lu (b. 1997) is a London-based interdisciplinary artist and maker, she was originally from Rizhao, China. Her medium expands from furniture, paintings to exhibitions, toys etc. Coming from a design background, her artwork explores constructed narratives and ideologies embedded in everyday objects, as well as the often invisible industrial systems behind contemporary living experiences. In her own words, she is “a maker who makes art about design.” She holds a BA in Industrial Design from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (Vancouver) and an MA in Design Products from the Royal College of Art (London). She is currently a PhD candidate in Communication Research at the Royal College of Art.

Edward Raneri (b.1994, Italy) lives and works in London. He works with objects, mixed media, sculpture an installation to explore solitude, alienation and the fragility of human presence. His research investigates the search for stability within a system driven by competition and social pressure, where identity exists in a state of constant tension and transformation. Raneri’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at Saatchi Gallery (London), and he has realised a permanent installation commissioned by Fondazione PeccioliPer as part of the MACCA Collection in Peccioli, Italy.

Daniel Roibal (b. 2001, Spain) lives and works in London. His practice emerges from deep contemplation. Influenced by a meditative walk through the forest, his paintings reflect the stillness and unpredictability of the natural world. For Roibal, painting becomes a way to pause time — creating environments where viewers can slow down and reconnect with themselves, each other, and the surrounding world through colour, motion, and presence.

Jordan Rubio (b. 1998, France) is an artist living and working in London. He holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2025) and a BA in Product and Graphic Design from École de Condé, Nice (2021). His work has been exhibited widely across Europe and the United States, including two solos in New York in Room 57 and Taglia and group shows at Beers London, Ohsh Projects, Contemporary Cluster in Rome, and Galleri Christoffer Egelung in Copenhagen. He has participated in international art fairs such as Future Fair (New York), Art Scope (Miami), and Luxembourg Art Fair. He’s participating in Art Cologne with Setareh.

Jordan Rubio’s practice explores the tension between idealism and collapse through a language of saturated colour, layered symbols, and fractured narratives. Drawing from both digital culture and the visual excess of consumer imagery, his paintings reimagine contemporary mythologies where beauty and chaos coexist. His compositions oscillate between figuration and abstraction, merging vivid dreamscapes with graphic precision to question what it means to create in an age of visual overload. Rubio’s process mirrors alchemy itself—transforming familiar icons into unstable, luminous forms that blur the boundary between utopia and decay.

Kirsty Sim (b. 1990) is an artist whose practice centres on fostering self-determination and critical thought, compelling individuals to examine their surrounding cultural context. Her work explores the fragile boundaries between reality and fantasy, fundamentally questioning how idealised worlds are constructed, inhabited, and negotiated. Through a methodologically diverse approach encompassing photography, digital manipulation, and mixed media, Sim addresses the complexities faced by a contemporary generation increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and expansive digital networks. Her dedication is ultimately a commitment to sustaining human connection and integrity within this evolving technological landscape.

Javier Torras Casas (b. 1990, Barcelona) studied Fine Art at the University of the Arts London and the Royal College of Art, and has been based in London since graduating in 2019. A formative moment in his practice came in 2021, when he was selected for the High House Art Residency in Norfolk, led by British artist Antony Gormley. He has also undertaken other residencies, including the Radical Residency at Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop (2018).

His exhibitions include Between Abstraction & Figuration, Crane Court Gallery, UK (2025); The Invitational I, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, UK (2020); Decreto 349, Charlie Smith London, UK (2019); Reachers, Blyth Gallery, UK (2019); Young Gods, Charlie Smith London, UK (2017); Leftovers, Prenzlauer Studio Space, Germany (2017); Practices of Enquiry, Cookhouse Gallery, London, UK (2016); and About Space, Lewisham Arthouse, UK (2016).

Ollie White (b.2000) is a painter based in London. His artistic practice involves depicting found imagery through the fictional space of his paintings. He uses painting as a tool to bring new meaning to this imagery, often alluding to an anthropomorphic presence. Playing with composition and form, he investigates the tension and connections surrounding spaces and objects, asking questions about meaning, desire and confinement. Ollie’s work juxtaposes feelings of urgency and being with the stillness of everyday life, exploring themes of abundance, temptation and seclusion. His process entails imaginative reconstruction, combining observation and memory to create a dream like finish.

Jiachen Zeng (b. 1997, China) is a mixed-media artist based in London. Having lived and exhibited across China, the United States, and the United Kingdom, she draws on a fluid, migratory, and spatially attuned approach to art-making. She is currently a resident artist at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation. Zeng holds an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art (2022) and a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2019). She has attended various group exhibitions in Beijing, Shanghai, Chicago, and London, including Beijing One Atelier, Tong Gallery+Projects, Shanghai West Bund Art Centre, Yao Space, Chicago Sullivan Gallery, Site Gallery, London Lychee One Gallery, Sillian Gallery, etc.

Her practice spans painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and immersive technologies. She examines the sensory, spatial, and emotional dynamics between people and environments, consistently exploring the boundaries between the spiritual and the physical. Through material and spatial experiments, she interlocks or disrupts the fragile ecologies of everyday life, reconstructing memories, relationships, and emotional attachments into new ways of understanding and inhabiting the world.

Mengmeng Zhang (b. 1997, Jiangsu, China) is a London-based artist graduated from MFA Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in 2025. She holds a BA from the China Academy of Art and an MA from Camberwell College of Arts. Zhang is the winner of 2025 Almacantar Studio Award. In 2024, Zhang was shortlisted for the New Wave Art Prize at the Bloomsbury Festival and the Hari Art Prize. The same year, she presented solo exhibition, ‘Out of Place’, at Bonian Space (Beijing). Zhang has participated in group exhibitions including ‘Line Shifu and Bakery Shifu’ at Small-Time Project (London, 2025), ‘Pareidolia’ at Mandy Zhang Art (London, 2025), ‘Moving Principle’ at Arusha Gallery (London, 2025), ‘Floating’ at The Bomb Factory (London, 2023), and ‘UNMUTE’ at Copeland Gallery (London, 2021), among others.

Tianle (Taylor) Zhao (b. 1998, China) is a London-based visual artist whose practice transforms emotional and relational tensions into material and spatial forms through sculpture and installation. Holding a Master’s degree in Interior Architecture from the University of Westminster, Zhao approaches space as a foundation for thinking—an emotional structure that contains memory, care, and solitude.

Her work focuses on the fragile thresholds between connection and separation, intimacy and distance, weight and tenderness. Drawing from personal experience, she examines how emotional structures—within families, relationships, and the self—are built, stretched, and transformed over time.

Installation Shots

Real Artists Sweat

26 November 2025 - 17 January 2026