SWELL

Refusés is pleased to present Swell, a new body of work by London-based painter Hattie Quigley, opening 5 September 2026. The exhibition marks Quigley's first solo presentation in London.

Swell is a word rich with contradiction. It evokes expansion and abundance, heightened emotion and bodily transformation, the pleasure of having a swell time alongside the discomfort of excess. It speaks to overconsumption and celebration, to a body that grows, hungers, desires and resists. Across this exhibition, these layered meanings become a lens through which Quigley examines contemporary experiences of appetite, indulgence and restraint.

Rooted in binge drinking, revelry, nightlife, hedonism and the carnivalesque, SWELL explores a society in which excess is both celebrated and condemned. It draws on the historic tradition of carnival, where social hierarchies dissolve, ritual replaces routine and abundance becomes a temporary act of liberation.

The exhibition sits between feasting and fasting, pleasure and guilt, spectacle and vulnerability. It also reflects on the pressure historically placed on women's bodies to remain small, disciplined and controlled, even within cultures that constantly encourage consumption.

Influenced by the theatricality of Baroque painting and the fleshy corporeality of the Old Masters, Quigley's expansive canvases carry melodrama, scale and intensity. Her painting technique draws on historical methods to create luminous, tactile surfaces that resist the flattened look of the digital image.

The paintings become containers for emotion, holding desire, grief, euphoria and hunger in equal measure. The body of work follows a seven week trip through Brazil, where the pageantry and collective energy of Carnival shaped her thinking directly. SWELL treats excess not as simple indulgence but as a way of examining what it means to inhabit a body today.

Hattie Quigley (b. 2002) received her BA in Painting from Edinburgh College of Art in 2025. She was the industry judge winner for Fine Art in the Global Creative Graduate Showcase 2025 in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. She joins the MA Painting programme at the Royal College of Art in September 2026, supported by the Ali H Alkazzi full Scholarship award.