No Place Art | where emerging voices meet those who elevate their vision into legacy.
“Stay open to both your rational and irrational thoughts, for art is more than mere feeling.” - Yuchen Ge
“The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.”
― James Baldwin
An Introduction | No Place Art
Since 2018, No Place Art (NPA) has stood as a bridge between bold creators and discerning patrons, founded by artist and visionary Rowan Siddons. Revitalised in 2024, NPA curates moments of artistic opportunity - where emerging voices meet those who elevate their vision into legacy.
NPA’s latest exhibition, “Materiality,” brought together a diverse selection of artists whose work explores the physical and conceptual possibilities of materials in contemporary practice. Through painting, installation, and mixed media, the show examined how substance and process inform meaning.
The judging panel for “Materiality,” included Bronwen Sleigh RSA (Printmaker, RCA MA Graduate, included in art collections worldwide.) Conor Rush (Artist and Founder of Starving Artists) Leslie De Canchy (President of Art2Cure, Former Gallerist and Previous Director of Luxembourg Art-week) Matthew Olivier (Painter and author included in art collections worldwide) Matthew Burrows MBE (Painter and Founder of Artist Support Pledge)
As part of “Materiality,” a series of awards were presented to recognise artistic achievement and encourage further creative development. It was my pleasure to be invited as one of the 14 award givers for this incredible exhibition. TheSpottedZebra award is an interview feature in our newsletter aiming to spread awareness to the artist and their work. I was blown away by the fascinating work of Yuchen Ge and our interview is featured down below!
Other awards included thousands in cash prizes, artist residences, solo exhibition opportunity’s, workshops, guest spots in curated exhibitions, mentoring, artist representation, lifetime memberships, and more! The result was an exhibition that reflected the breadth and depth of emerging artistic voices today, a testament to NPA’s commitment to nurturing a community where artists can grow, connect, and be seen.
I urge each of you to keep up with their upcoming exhibitions, opportunities, and events, visit No Place Art’s Website and Instagram to follow their journey as they continue to build a thriving community for artists and audiences alike.
Live Painting | Jake Andrew
Jake Andrew is a British multidisciplinary artist and experimental musician whose work is shaped by synaesthesia—a neurological phenomenon that enables him to perceive sound as colour, texture, and form. His practice sits at the intersection of gestural abstraction, immersive installation, and digital experimentation, transforming emotional and auditory stimuli into striking visual experiences.
Jake’s journey began in music. Originally a touring musician, he started painting as a way of writing music—an instinctive response to experiencing sound through shape and hue. In a pivotal moment, he left a band mid-tour to pursue formal art education, completing a foundation degree before going on to earn both a BA and MA in Fine Art. It was during his postgraduate study that he began questioning the static nature of painting: can a painting shift and evolve like an emotional state? This line of inquiry laid the foundation for a body of work that explores fluidity, perception, and the structure of feeling.
His practice, which he describes as “saying the things we don’t know how to vocalise,” navigates the space between emotion and interpretation—inviting audiences to engage with art that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. Jake’s work often serves as a sensory map, translating internal experience into visual language.
His story and practice have been the subject of the documentary “A Perceptual Phenomenon,” which offers a deeper insight into the intersections between sound, memory, and visual language that define his approach.
As part of the client night for “Materiality,” guests were treated to a live painting by Jake in response to a piano composition performed by Maya Caskie. What unfolded was a shared moment of creation, embodying NPA’s belief in collaboration across disciplines and the living, evolving nature of artistic practice.
Interview With Award Winner | Yuchen Ge
Yuchen Ge is a UK based Chinese artist and art historian whose practice explores the intersections of dreams, imagination, visual memory and art history. Working across painting and print, she bridges historical reference with imagination, reactivating Baroque theatrically and Rococo ornamentality through a contemporary painterly language.
Ge holds an MSc by Research in History of Art from the University of Edinburgh and an MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London, following earlier study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.
Ge’s work has been exhibited in London, Beijing and Suzhou, and featured in Stanford Magazine. In 2022, her etching ‘The Story of Tonight’ was acquired by Goldsmiths, and her painting ‘Straight from the Horse’s Mouth’ was selected for the XV Florence Biennale 2025.
When did you first realise that art would be the language through which you express yourself?
I remember when I was a little kid at my grandparents’ house, I would paint and draw on their bedsheets as well as the back of wall calendars, and they didn’t get mad when they found out – I felt encouraged to do this more. My parents sent me to formal training in oil painting and sketches at the age of six, there, I firstly felt the power to express fluently in the language of painting, and realised how techniques and passion can work together in a more tangible way to assist my exploration. I still sketch a lot between my painting projects, and I try to bring the spirit of free sketching into my oil painting and printmaking practice – it is the first language in art that I ever used, and the one to which I feel a primary connection.
You’ve studied in both China and the UK. How have those cultural and artistic contexts shaped your visual language?
My education in China mainly focused on European academic methods in painting, anatomy, sketch, and printmaking (etching, woodcut, lithography). My training at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing grounded me in a strong sense of material discipline, process, and the physical act of making – an approach in which technique and craft hold conceptual weight.
In the UK, I discovered a more self-reflexive relationship with my work. At the Goldsmiths, postgraduate teaching emphasised questioning one’s existing framework in practice and cultivating a more concept-oriented dialogue with the viewer. Through conversations with my supervisors and group crits, I became more aware of the presence of presentation per se, and its agency in shaping meaning and fostering a more personal expression.
I explored different languages that emerge at different stages of a painting: from monochrome brush sketches and primal colours to more spontaneous gestures of paint and oil on canvas. This shift in my practice was further deepened by my study in Art History at the University of Edinburgh, where I engaged more critically with painting practice, images, and their historical resonance in my practice today.
How does your background as an art historian influence the way you see and understand art?
Old masters’ work has always had a profound influence on my practice, such as Caravaggio, Goya, Rubens, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas. Studying the History of Art has deeply shaped the way I see and understand influence from these artists and historical reference in my themes and visual languages. I see painting as a process of thinking on canvas – a form of meditation.
I have been deeply fascinated by the entanglement between personal perception – dream, memory, imagination, visual contemplation, with impact from a shared vocabulary and knowledge. I collect and reframe fragments from my dreams, thoughts, and stories in a visual contemplation – an alternative reality – which often arrives at the crossroads of a shared visual vocabulary and the unruly, personal terrain of storytelling. Art history, for me, is not separate from making – it deepens it. It gives me a critical distance that enriches intuition, enabling me to work with images both as a maker and as a reader of their histories.
Are there particular historical periods or movements that continue to inspire you?
I am captivated by the Baroque, the Rococo, and the Dutch Golden Age, and I am fascinated by the art of Decadence in late nineteenth-century France and Britain. I am particularly enchanted by the eerie atmosphere in scenes of late-night Parisian café-concerts or intimate interiors seen in works of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as striking contrasts of light and darkness. I sense a similar eerie quality in works by artists separated by centuries – for example, the relaxed brushstrokes and colour contrasts in a painting by Rubens resonate with a backstage scene by Degas. This uncanny sensibility, which threads through many moments in art history, is something I hope to explore further in my own practice.
Which works of literature have influenced you the most?
I have admired Molière’s plays since my undergraduate studies, particularly their mysterious, unsettling atmospheres and intense psychological charge, which also vary across different stage presentations. I am also drawn to writers who explore the boundaries between personal perception, history, and imagination – the Goncourts, Huysmans, and others – whose decadent sensibilities and rebellious questioning shape my sense of the uncanny as an aesthetic channel. Their writings inform my painting practice as a site where intuition meets critical distance, and where light, gesture, and atmosphere become means of thinking historically through images.
What role does the subconscious play in your work?
I enjoy exploring the intersections of imagination, visual memory, and art history. I recognise that only those dreams that survive my sleeping hours and stay in my mind feel close to the idea of art. I started exploring sketch-like monochrome language in recent years, and I found that the rather sketchy stage in developing the painting better captured the raw emotions that I got from a dream, by contrast, the finished painting presents a meditation while being sober – after the shock from the subconscious world. Eventually, the raw emotion from dreams is translated into subconsciousness, which are ultimately reworked, intensified, or sometimes screened by rationality and tangible memory.
What’s the most meaningful part of making art for you?
I would say the most meaningful part of making art is to offer stories with honest and personal contemplation, through a language that cares about the audience and their communications with you as the storyteller.
What does success mean to you as an artist?
For me, it is the capacity to convey personal storytelling through a transferable visual language – a unique dialogue between emotional truth and rational reflection, realised through substantial intellectual engagement and sustained time investment.
What is a question you wish more people asked about your work?
What was your thought process in creating this piece? I enjoy discussing about themes, subjects, and material aspects of my work, as each conversation offers new ideas and fresh perspectives to consider.
What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring creatives?
Stay open to both your rational and irrational thoughts, for art is more than mere feeling.
The Winning Piece
Final Line | To Infinity and Beyond
“Materiality” felt less like an exhibition and more like a conversation between artists, and materials. In a world that often asks for speed, No Place Art reminds us of the value of slowing down, of making, and of sharing. If their mission is to build a thriving community of creatives, this exhibition “Materiality” proved that such a community is already taking shape.
Huge congratulations to the many selected artists and a big thank you to the NPA team for inviting me to take part in such a special exhibition :)
You can keep up with No Place Art’s upcoming shows and opportunities from their Website and Instagram.