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Press Release
| Sam Jackson & Derek Ridgers |
| Covered |
| EXHIBITION DATES: Monday 13 October–Friday 31 October 2025 |
| EXHIBITION HOURS: Monday–Friday 10am-5pm |
| ADDRESS: Gramercy Park Studios, 25 Great Pulteney Street, Soho, London W1F 9ND |
| The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. Susan Sontag, On Photography CHARLIE SMITH LONDON is pleased to announce ‘Covered’, a two-person exhibition featuring painter Sam Jackson and photographer Derek Ridgers at Gramercy Park Studios in Soho, London. ‘Covered’ is a provocative new exhibition featuring the works of painter Sam Jackson and photographer Derek Ridgers, exploring the shifting dynamics of the male gaze in contemporary art. Through painting and photography, both artists confront the complex, and often controversial, ways in which men depict women. Their works examine the themes of objectification, agency, and power, asking whether it’s possible for the male gaze to transcend its historical legacy and offer a more nuanced, empowering perspective. The exhibition is built around two key ideas: construct and disclose. While Ridgers’ photographs conceal his subjects behind glass, gels, water, or fabric, Jackson’s paintings ‘uncover’ them, offering a more direct but equally complex portrayal. Significantly, these works depict the same women—with each subject captured both by Jackson and Ridgers. Presented as painter–photographer pairs, the images invite comparisons not just between media, but also between ways of seeing. The result is a dialogue between concealment and revelation, surface and psychology. In a statement reflecting his artistic journey, Ridgers notes that the title ‘Covered’ speaks to both his artistic process and the vulnerability inherent in the project: "Revealed but still half hidden," he says, explaining how the portraits present his subjects behind various layers, symbolizing his own personal hesitation in fully unveiling his work. Ridgers gives total agency to his subjects, and the duality of exposure and concealment is central to the exhibition’s narrative, creating a space where the artists and subjects alike navigate the boundaries of privacy, identity, and public gaze. The exhibition questions the role of the viewer: are these images objects of desire, or do they offer a deeper understanding of the people and stories behind them? Through this lens, the show also explores the role of the digital age in consuming and commodifying images of women, asking whether modern technology exacerbates or challenges traditional representations of the female body. ‘Covered’ ultimately engages with the question of agency: who controls the image, the story, and the gaze? By flipping traditional roles of maker and subject, Jackson and Ridgers invite the audience to reconsider their relationship to the female form in art. The exhibition encourages a critical reflection on how art is consumed, the responsibility of both creator and viewer, and whether power can be reclaimed from the audience by the subject. For artwork list email direct@charliesmithlondon.com About the Artists: Sam Jackson has exhibited widely at galleries and institutions including Saatchi Gallery, London; The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, Norwich; Walker Art Museum, Liverpool; Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth; Dean Clough, Halifax; Galerie Robert Drees, Berlin; Galerie Rigassi, Bern; Koraalberg Contemporary Art Gallery, Antwerp; and Mark Moore Gallery, LA. His work is placed in prominent private collections globally including Javier Baz, Denver; Glen Luchford, New York; David Roberts, London; Sir Norman Rosenthal, London; and Kay Saatchi, Los Angeles. Derek Ridgers is a celebrated British photographer whose work spans over four decades, documenting subcultures, music scenes, and underground nightlife. He is best known for his iconic images of punks, skinheads, and club kids in London during the 1970s and ’80s. His photographs have been published in acclaimed books including Skinheads, London Youth, and 77–87 London Youth, and featured in publications such as The Face, NME, and Time Out. Ridgers has exhibited internationally and his work is held in major public and private collections, cementing his reputation as a key chronicler of British counterculture. The event will take place at Gramercy Park Studios, 25 Great Pulteney Street, Soho, London W1F 9ND. Available to view Monday-Friday 10am-5pm. For further information please contact direct@charliesmithlondon.com. Follow @CHARLIESMITHIdn |
Exhibition Text: Tom Morton
| EXHIBITION TEXT |
| Tom Morton |
| Covered |
| In her seminal collection of essays On Photography (1977), Susan Sontag wrote that while ‘the painter constructs, the photographer discloses’. This broad-brush, wide-angle assertion is widely quoted, but perhaps not wholly accurate — since Cubism, painting has been as much concerned with deconstruction as construction, while here in our post-digital age, photography’s relationship with the real feels terminally adrift. Nevertheless, Sontag is correct that the two art forms offer up their own distinct sets of possibilities and limits. It is this fact that animates ‘Covered’, an exhibition of works by the photographer Derek Ridgers and the painter Sam Jackson, which is much concerned with how their respective mediums negotiate the complexities of looking and being looked at, of how the depiction of a surface both conceals and reveals what lies beneath. The artists’ second joint show (their first took place in 2017, at CHARLIE SMITH LONDON), it grew out of a series of images made by Ridgers, collectively titled Uncovered, for which he shot a number of female sitters, whose facial features were partially obscured by materials and substances of varying transparency and opacity, among them glass, bath water, coloured gels and gauzy fabric. ‘Covered’ presents six of these works, in dialogue with six corresponding paintings by Jackson, each of which depicts one of Ridgers’ models. Here, the young women have emerged from behind their ‘veils’, and meet the painter’s — and the viewer’s — gaze with impassive expressions and steady, probing eyes. If Ridgers’ and Jackson’s work may be identified as a species of portraiture, then it is one that is alive to the genre’s complexities and contradictions (we might remember, here, Oscar Wilde’s claim that ‘Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter’, and Richard Avedon’s observation that ‘A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks’). In Ridgers’ photographs, the ‘veils’ serve an ambiguous function, distorting or concealing his sitters’ features, while also emphasizing their physicality, even their object-hood: the mass of Chessie’s brows and lips as they press against a translucent pink curtain, the cavity of Charlie’s mouth as she bellows out a subaqueous scream. While these coverings might be interpreted as a form of armour, protecting the models from the scopic attentions of the photographer and viewer, adopting them is not without hazard — witness the sodden, suffocating fabric that clings to Liz’s face, as though she was being waterboarded by some unseen torturer. Looking at Ridgers’ works, we ask ourselves why his sitters decided to present themselves to his camera in this particular fashion, and what socio-cultural forces ultimately undergirded this choice. Are these images of desire, resistance, self-actualization, self-erasure? How does the creative impulse intersect with power, on each side of the lens? In Jackson’s paintings, the models have a very different bearing. No longer hidden behind — or perhaps adorned with — their various ‘veils’, they now stand before us, face to face, seemingly offering us the opportunity to glimpse some trace of their psyches in their eyes, their lips. And yet, there remains something unsettlingly still and mask-like about their expressions. This is in contrast to the enigmatic, often alarming words and phrases that Jackson has scrawled, scratched and sprayed across their cheeks, brows and chests, in the manner of graffiti on a school desk, or stick-and-poke tattoos: ‘DEFEATED’, ‘Queen of Chaos’, ‘PAIN IS BEAUTY’ and ‘IT CAN’T RAIN ALL THE TIME’. There is an ambiguity to whether it is the models’ skin that has been thus defaced, or their painted image. Is it their own work, or that of the artist? Who here has really portrayed themselves? Another possibility occurs: these fragments of text are external manifestations of the young women’s innermost thoughts and feelings, which despite all their efforts at composure have welled up from deep within them, and now blazon across their faces. If this sounds fanciful, we must remember how the body keeps the score. |
Biography: Sam Jackson
| EDUCATION | ||
| 2004 - 2007 | Post-Graduate Diploma Fine Art | Royal Academy Schools, London |
| 2000 - 2003 | BA (Hons) Fine Art | Middlesex University, London |
| ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS | ||
| 2023 | Retrospective: Fifteen Years (curated by Zavier Ellis) | GIANT GALLERY, Bournemouth |
| 2023 | Correspondences | Galerie Isabelle Gounod, Paris |
| 2022 | Autumn Song | Gramercy Park Studios, London |
| 2021 | Collaborators | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2019 | Chronicles | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2018 | RUN TO ME (with Derek Ridgers | curated by Faye Dowling) | Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt |
| 2017 | RUN TO ME (with Derek Ridgers | curated by Faye Dowling) | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2014 | Colossal Youth (Part 2) | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2014 | Colossal Youth (Part 1) | VOLTA, New York |
| 2011 | The Fearful Joy | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2009 | Vas Deferens | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2008 | The Cabinet | BRAUBACHfive, Frankfurt |
| 2008 | Boundaries | Thomas Williams Fine Art, London |
| SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS | ||
| 2024 | Sometimes Always (collaborative paintings with Zavier Ellis) | Gramercy Park Studios, London |
| 2023 | Rose Garden | Terrace Gallery, London |
| 2022 | An eXhibition of SMALL things with BIG ideas (curated by Paul Carey-Kent) White | Conduit Projects, London |
| 2022 | DELTA GAMMA (curated by Zavier Ellis) | Saatchi Gallery, London |
| 2021 | Repetition | The Depot x CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2020 | Picture Palace | Transition Gallery, London |
| 2020 | Words that transform, vibrate and glow: 13 paintings inspired by the lyrics of Nick Cave (curated by Angela Koulakoglou) | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2019 | 10 Years | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2019 | Plan B | David Zwirner Gallery, New York |
| 2018 | Total Eclipse of The Heart - Paintings about Women (curated by Dan Coombs) | Watson Farley & Williams, London |
| 2018 | Making and Breaking the Rules: Royal Academy 250 | Russel-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth |
| 2018 | Pleasure Drive (curated by GSL Projekt and CAVE 3000) | GSL Projekt, Berlin |
| 2017 | In Memoriam Francesca Lowe | Old Truman Brewery, London |
| 2017 | Part I: Street Semiotics (curated by Zavier Ellis) | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2016 | A Promise of Truth - the Contemporary Portrait | Galerie Robert Drees, Berlin |
| 2016 | Black Paintings | Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt |
| 2016 | Semiotic Guerilla Warfare (Part 2) | Dean Clough Museum, Halifax |
| 2015 | Semiotic Guerilla Warfare (Part 1) | PAPER Gallery, Manchester |
| 2015 | Black Paintings | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2015 | Black Paintings : CHARLIE SMITH LONDON & Heike Strelow Gallery | Positions, Berlin |
| 2015 | REALITY: Modern and Contemporary British Painting | Walker Art Museum, Liverpool |
| 2015 | Die English Kommen! - New Painting from London (curated by Zavier Ellis) | Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt |
| 2014 | Idolatry | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2014 | Saatchi’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca | B1, Victoria House, London |
| 2014 | Cultus Deorum (curated by Zavier Ellis) | Saatchi Gallery, London |
| 2014 | REALITY: Modern and Contemporary British Painting (curated by Chris Stevens) | Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich |
| 2013 | Gallery Artists: Director’s Selection | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2013 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca Wilson) | B1, Victoria House, London |
| 2013 | Porträts | Galerie Rigassi, Bern |
| 2012 | The Id, the Ego and the Superego (curated by Zavier Ellis) | BRAUBACHfive, Frankfurt |
| 2012 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca Wilson) | B1, Victoria House, London |
| 2012 | The Serpent’s Tail | Witzenhausen Gallery, Amsterdam |
| 2012 | Polemically Small (curated by Zavier Ellis & Edward Lucie-Smith) | Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham |
| 2012 | The Id, the Ego and the Superego (curated by Zavier Ellis & Marcela Munteanu) | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2011 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis, Simon Rumley & Rebecca Wilson) | B1, Victoria House, London |
| 2011 | Charlie Sierra Lima | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2011 | Everyday (curated by Tony Benn) | University Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge |
| 2011 | Polemically Small (curated by Edward Lucie-Smith) | Klaipeda Culture Communication Centre, Klaipeda |
| 2011 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT presents: Polemically Small (curated by Zavier Ellis, Edward Lucie-Smith & Simon Rumley) | Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles |
| 2011 | Polemically Small (curated by Edward Lucie-Smith) | Garboushian Gallery, Beverley Hills |
| 2010 | Pokerface | Koraalberg Contemporary Art Gallery, Antwerp |
| 2010 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Shoreditch Town Hall, London |
| 2010 | Polemically Small (curated by Edward Lucie-Smith) | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2010 | Ray Lowry London Calling | Idea Generation, London |
| 2010 | New British Painting (curated by Zavier Ellis & Pilvi Kalhama) | Gallery Kalhama & Piippo, Helsinki |
| 2010 | Call to Arms | BRAUBACHfive, Frankfurt |
| 2009 | British Art Now (curated by Edward Lucie-Smith) | Werkstatt Galerie, Berlin |
| 2009 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Old Truman Brewery, London |
| 2009 | New London School (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Galerie Schuster, Berlin |
| 2008 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Old Truman Brewery, London |
| 2008 | The Smallest Art Fair in the World | Anna Kustera Gallery, New York |
| 2008 | A Stain upon the Silence (curated by Chris Shilling, Chris Page & Gaboy Gaynor) | St. Martins College of Art, London |
| 2008 | Anticipation (curated by Kay Saatchi & Catriona Warren) | Selfridges, London |
| 2008 | UK Best Graduates | White Box Gallery, New York |
| 2008 | The Past is History Part II (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Changing Role Gallery, Napoli |
| 2008 | The Past is History Part I (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Changing Role Gallery, Rome |
| 2008 | Icon (curated by Hugh Mendes) | Primo Alonso Gallery, London |
| 2008 | New London School (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Mark Moore Gallery, Los Angeles |
| 2007 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT (curated by Zavier Ellis & Simon Rumley) | Atlantis Gallery, London |
| 2006 | RA 5 | Lennon Weinberg, New York |
| 2006 | Royal Academy Show | Wisniez Castle, Krakow |
| 2005 | 50 Selected artists | Hollow Salon, London |
| 2004 | 12 Award Winners Show | Florence Trust, London |
| AWARDS & RESIDENCIES | ||
| 2007 | Chelsea Arts Club Travel Award | |
| 2005 | Sturdley Award | |
| 2004 | British Institute Award | |
| 2003–2004 | Florence Trust Studio Award | |
| BIBLIOGRAPHY | ||
| 2017 | RUN TO ME | Exhibition Catalogue |
| 2017 | The Book of Black, Faye Dowling (ISBN 978-1786270429) | Laurence King Publishing |
| 2014 | REALITY: Modern and Contemporary British Painting, Chris Stevens (ISBN 978-1786270429) | Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts |
| 2013 | 100 London Artists Vol. 1, Zavier Ellis & Edward Lucie-Smith | iArtBook |
| 2013 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT | Exhibition Catalogue |
| 2012 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT | Exhibition Catalogue |
| 2011 | Saatchi Gallery & Channel 4’s New Sensations and THE FUTURE CAN WAIT | Exhibition Catalogue |
| 2010 | New British Painting, Timo Valjakka | Artforum |
| 2009 | British Art Now, Travis Jeppesen | Artforum |
| 2009 | Sexuality in Art | Modern Edition.com |
| 2008 | THE FUTURE CAN WAIT | Exhibition Catalogue |
| 2008 (Jul) | Saatchi after Saatchi, Ginny Dougray | The Times Magazine |
| 2007 (Oct) | Oh You Pretty Things, Derwent May | The Times |
| 2007 (Aug) | Guide to the Fairs, Richard Clayton | Sunday Times |
| 2007 | 15 Young Masters, Freire Barnes | Bon International (No.12) |
| 2007 | Miser & Now (Issue 10), Q&A | Miser & Now |
| COLLECTIONS | ||
| Javier Baz, Denver | ||
| Carlos Fragoso, New York | ||
| Glen Luchford, New York | ||
| David Roberts, London | ||
| Sir Norman Rosenthal, London | ||
| Kay Saatchi, Los Angeles | ||
| Private collections in Belgium, Columbia, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom & United States | ||
Biography: Derek Ridgers
| EDUCATION | ||
| 1967-1971 | Ealing School of Art | |
| EXHIBITIONS | ||
| 2017 | RUN TO ME with Sam Jackson | Curated by Faye Dowling | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, London |
| 2017 | Rock, Funk, Punk | Fotografie Forum, Frankfurt |
| 2017 | Behind The Beat | Spectrum, Brighton |
| 2017 | Fear and Loathing at The Roxy | Neal Street, London |
| 2017 | The Spirit of Youth | Janine Bean Gallery, Berlin |
| 2017 | Youth | D Museum, Seoul |
| 2016 | In Your Face | Liberty, London |
| 2016 | An Ideal For Living | Beetles + Huxley, London |
| 2016 | Punk Weekender | Photographers Gallery, London |
| 2016 | Forty Year of Punk | Paul Smith London |
| 2015 | Derek Ridgers -London Youth | Galerie Koll & Friends, Berlin |
| 2012 | The Endless Night | The Museum of Club Culture, Hull |
| 2007 | How We Are | Tate Britain, London |
| 2004 | The London Look | Museum of London, London |
| 2004 | Black British Style | V&A Museum, London |
| 1999 | Rock And Roll Years | Proud Gallery, London |
| 1999 | Icons | National Portrait Gallery, London |
| 1998 | Rock And Roll Attitudes | Maison Européene de Ia Photographie, Paris |
| 1995-1996 | NME Exposed | Terrance Higgins Trust, London |
| 1984 | Five Years With The Face | Photographers Gallery, London |
| 1983 | Les Mythes De - Nos Nippes | Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris |
| 1983 | We Are The Flowers In Your Dustbin | Photogallery, Hastings |
| 1982 | The Kiss | Photographers Gallery, London |
| 1980-1981 | Skinhead | Chenil Gallery, London and Exeter University |
| 1978 | Some Punk Portraits | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London |