Luke Elwes was born in 1961 in London, where he now lives and works. His early years were spent in Iran, where the light and space of the desert were a formative influence. He studied History at Bristol University and Painting at Camberwell Art School between 1979 and 1985, and holds a postgraduate degree in Art History from London University. 

While working at Christies in 1986 he began to travel and write, and after meeting Bruce Chatwin in 1987 he went to the central Australian desert to explore the landscape and its use in indigenous storytelling and artforms. Since then he has continued to travel extensively, discovering and revisiting remote locations in India, Asia Minor and North Africa. In 1998 he was artist in residence on an expedition to Mount Kailash, a holy mountain in western Tibet. Since 2000 he has worked for extensive periods on an island off the East Coast of the UK. In 2013 he was awarded a grant to study at the Vermont Studio Center and in 2015 he was resident artist at the Albers Foundation (USA). He is also a fellow of the Ballinglen Arts Foundation (Ireland).

The idea of a journey is central to his painting, both its physical and temporal unfolding and its recollection in memory. The surfaces recall maps, tracing the marks of history and the fragile signs of belief, and moving between what is revealed and concealed of these often empty and distant terrains. Rooted in the particular, the images also probe an interior space. Andrew Lambirth has written about them: ‘The map is nearly erased, a distressed palimpsest; it’s difficult to decipher a single clear meaning. The viewer must, like a scryer, read the signs and interpret accordingly'. More recently the writer Robert Macfarlane has described how ‘they hover between encryption and archetype, enigma and fabulous openness’.

Please visit the official artist's website to see work by Luke Elwes.

Sue Hubbard on Luke Elwes (The Independent September 2004)

Elwes's territory is both familiar and strange, distant and yet somehow known. As the French philosopher-poet Gaston Bachelard wrote in Poetics of Space, "We cover the universe with drawings we have lived." The thinly layered surfaces echo patterns of weather and erosion; marks are made then washed away or erased. Ancient pathways across plains, deserts or fields are suggested to create, as Elwes has said, "spaces which are mapped by belief rather than measured by science". These pathways are markers in the emptiness of the canvas, making sense of the space as they also attempt to make sense of the world.

Andrew Lambirth on Luke Elwes (exhibition catalogue 2011)

Constable spoke of landscape painting as a branch of natural philosophy, and there is a case for the otherworldly landscapes of Luke Elwes to be seen as a branch of philosophical enquiry. Elwes explores the landscape of memory, the history and spirit of places, but at the same time evokes the journey into self, which is not about the indulgences of autobiography or self-expression, but primarily concerned with the intermingled layering of time and experience. He takes a particular path, chooses to follow certain threads, and spins out his indefinite painterly narratives in imagery of a delicacy that seems to contradict its formal robustness. He works with trace rather than statement, with suggestion rather than description. He aims to capture atmosphere and the ephemeral effect, but also the underlying truths which hold the key to the pattern. His paintings can resemble veils, with vertical bands of colour emerging through them, a little like faded banners, the vertical frequently played off against a horizontal element or axis. (The horizon line or division of sky and earth is another principal means of apportioning the picture space.) A marker pole appears in a current of light, of water, of cloud. There might be a suggestion of a window or doorway, a rectangle of darkness, or an opening through a surface – which might be a wall – onto other light, a featureless prospect or perhaps one full of invisible potential, like the future. The laden atmosphere is filled with motes, of dust, of memories. The past helps to shape the present before it metamorphoses once again into the future. Elwes investigates the relationship of parts.

In a very literal sense, it’s all about placement, spatial conjunctions, the dispersal and articulation of related elements. In the oils on canvas, the objects painted, such as they are, are often of an architectural nature, and have the appearance of presenting abraded surfaces, weather-worn and aged, witness surely to countless events and histories. But are they actually eroded, these partially-stated surfaces? Are they really losing their detail? Perhaps in fact they are seen only dimly, as through a haze or a clouded lens. Sometimes the focus pulls away so much that we appear to be off-Earth, viewing the planet from afar. But then the subtly non-spherical shape on the picture plane suggests we are actually looking at a snowy hill resembling the Earth. Certainly we are looking at the edge of something, a rim, a dividing point and threshold. This liminal quality, which is also allied to his fascination for maps, is an abiding theme of Elwes’ work.

If the paintings in the main derive from the artist’s travels abroad, the works on paper deal with a subject much closer to home: the stretch of land and water at Landermere in Essex. Here Elwes spends time in the marginal territory of rivers and tributaries, marsh-land for the most part, where water is a way of life. The effects of light on water, so easily (and lazily) reduced to an optical dazzle, are carefully analyzed and re-formulated in watercolours of great subtlety and considerable seduction. The works on paper are decidedly crisper in their distinctions than the oils – their areas of “thing” and “no-thing”, the pattern of white which emerges through the delicate skeins of paint, the insistent linearity and the subtle layering of colour. Occasionally the particles are distributed across the picture plane like autumn leaves in an aerial ballet, or fragments of vegetation floating on a placid lake. The patterns gather and writhe into new configurations: the root system of a tree, the crow’s-foot spread of a river into a delta, the eddy and swirl of clearly-observed moving water carrying a cargo of flotsam. Occasionally it is as if we are looking through a faded and torn fabric onto some brightly-coloured spectacle beyond, revealed only in tantalizing glimpses.

Other associations reach into the mind: reflections of the winter branches of trees threshing the wind; a landscape seen at dawn or dusk, in moments of swift extremity and flux; shadows breaking up into their constituents of coloured light; weather charts exquisitely detailed with temperature-colour variations. The incidents of colour on a softly modulated ground suggest medal ribbons at a parade or the bright plumage of small birds on an autumn day. One cannot escape the feeling that Elwes portrays this finest of filigrees  – his net or mesh in which to catch experiences  – so often because, having identified it, he wants to explore the utter permeability of our world, and its state of constant change due to influence. How, in effect, everything influences and affects everything else, touches it, touches us, and whether we like it or not, we are moulded by our environment. He is also casting a net of connectedness over what he sees, reaffirming his recognition of man’s place in the story – which is properly one of co-operation and co-existence rather than dominion. There is a wonderful equality of attention to these paintings, an all-over-ness which helps to account for their surprisingly assured appeal. Elwes makes a kind of celestial confetti, a serene fusion of light and the motes dancing in it. He might also be painting a million million prayers, written on multi-coloured scraps of paper and scattered to the ends of the earth, falling alike on fallow ground or fertile, but all heard by God. Whatever its cause, there is a quiet joy to his meditations, which chimes well with the understated beauty of his images.

Archive: artist timeline and catalogue of exhibitions

Luke Elwes was born in 1961 and lives in London. His early years were spent in Iran, where the light and space of the mountains and desert were a formative influence.

1963-1968 Lived in Tehran, Iran (father a mining engineer); 1972-79 Worth School, Sussex; 1980-83 Bristol University (BA History); 1983-5 Camberwell Art School (tutors included Chris Pemberton, Matthew Radford, Francis Hoyland & Sargy Mann)

1984 The Spirit of London, GLC/ Royal Festival Hall, London. (first group show, including Stephen Cox, Dexter Dalwood, Tim Hyman, Sargy Mann, Madeleine Strindberg))

1985- 86 Porter/cataloguer at Christies Fine Art Auctioneers (Watercolours & Prints Department)

1987   

Luke Elwes, Holland Gallery London (October 1987). Reviews: ‘Luke Elwes’, Max Wykes Joyce, Arts Review, October 1987; ‘Young Talent’ (Evening Standard 18.10.87); Colin Gleadell, The Hill Magazine (Oct 1987)

Group shows: Contemporary Art Society Art Market, Smiths Galleries, London; 378 British Artists, Smiths Galleries, London; 38eme Salon de la Jeune Peinture, Grand Palais, Paris.

1988

Travels through the Australian desert (September - November); first visit to India (December)

Group shows: 39eme Salon de la Jeune Peinture, Grand Palais, Paris; Contemporary Art Society Art Market, Smiths Galleries, London; 378 British Artists, Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh.

First article published by Galleries Magazine on Georg Baselitz (with regular reviews continuing until 2006)

1989   

‘Luke Elwes | Somerset Levels’, Smith Galleries, Covent Garden, London Reviews: Robin Dutt, Gallery Choice, The Independent (14 March 1989) ‘The Art of Travel’, Rebecca Willis,Vogue, August 1989

International Contemporary Art Fair, Los Angeles (Rebecca Hossack Gallery)

1990

Bungle Bungle, Rebecca Hossack Gallery London (first solo gallery exhibition) ‘Bungle Bungle’, Colin Gleadell, exhibition catalogue,March 1990

Exhibition reviews: Giles Auty, The Spectator, 14 April 1990; Giles Auty,’The lure of down under’,Galleries Magazine April 1990; William Packer, The Financial Times, 8 May 1990; ‘Luke Elwes’, Emma Burn, Arts Review, 18 May 1990; ‘Luke Elwes’, Sue Hubbard, Time Out, 2 May 1990; Exhibition Diary, World of Interiors April 1990; Evening Standard 12 April 1990

Group shows: The Broad Horizon, Agnews, London Oct-Nov 1990 (group show, including Dennis Creffield, Fred Cumming,, Patrick Proctor, Peter Prendegast & Carel Weight); International Contemporary Art Fair, London.    

1991   

Landcross, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London (solo) Oct-Nov 1991

Exhibition reviews: ‘Landcross’, Sister Wendy Beckett, exhibition catalogue, August 1991; Giles Auty, The Spectator, 20 April  1991; Giles Auty, ‘Unresolved issue, The Spectator, 12 October  1991; ‘Luke Elwes’, Jane Norrie, Arts Review, 18 October 1991

Group shows: Il Sud Del Mondo, L’Altra Arte Contemporanea, Marsala, Sicily, and Milan, Italy; Fresh Horizons, William Jackson Gallery, London; Earthscape, Hastings & Southampton City Art Gallery; Songlines, Barbican, London.

Artist member on ‘Lord of the Isles’ expedition, Hebridean Islands. National Trust commission to paint Uppark (after the fire). Article: Stephen Jones, ‘Drama of Loss’, Country Life 11 July 1991

Travels to East Africa (Dec 1991- Jan 1992). Shipwrecked on Christmas day 1991

1992   

Luke Elwes: work in Progress, Broadbent April 1992 (solo)

Group shows: London Painters, Galerie Vieille du Temple, Paris; Spring, Barbican, London (chosen by The Spectator); The Poetry Show, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, October 1992; British Art, The Guardian, London November 1992 (including Ken Kiff, Andrzej Jackowski, Prunella Clough, Eileen Cooper, John Maclean, Mali Morris, Estelle Thompson)

Reviews: ‘You must change your life’ Daniel Gawthorp, City Limits 8.10.1992; ‘Vox Pop’, Natalie Wheen, Modern Painters, Winter 1992; Natalie Wheen, Kaleidoscope,  Radio Four,  Dec 1992

2 works purchased for Christies UK Art Collection.

1993

Storyline, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London (solo)

Exhibition reviews: Giles Auty, The Spectator, 24 April 1993; Nick Tite, Royal Academy Magazine, Spring 1993; Anthony Gardner, Evening Standard, 11 May 1993; ‘Joining the dots on the landscape’, Dalya Alberge, The Independent, 20 July 1993; ‘Finding order in the desert’, Annabel Freyburg, Catholic Herald 9.4.93; ‘Shop window’, Art review April 1993

‘Luke Elwes’, Galerie Vieille du Temple, Paris  (June- July 1993) Review: ‘Luke Elwes’,Beaux Arts Magazine, Paris, July 1993

Group shows: Reflections, Edinburgh & London (chosen by The Spectator)

Travels to California, New Mexico & Arizona

1994   

Celebration, New British Art, (Coode-Adams Martin Associates), Benjamin Rhodes Gallery, London (including Patrick Caulfield, Martin Constable, Dennis de Caires, Stephen Farthing)

Sanctuary project, curated by Susan Loppert for the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Trust (with Mali Morris, Shirazeh Houshiary & Maggi Hambling)

First painting sold at Auction: Christies, London 26 October 1994

Travels to North Africa: Morocco (Atlas & Djebel Sahara)

1995   

Island, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London May-June 1995 (solo)

Exhibition reviews: Iain Gale, The Independent, 2 June 1995; ‘Verve & Colour’, Felicity Owen, Country Life, May 1995; ‘Luke Elwes’, Iain Gale, The Week (Review of reviews), 3 June 1995; ‘Luke Elwes’, Ian McKay, What’s On (Art in London), 21 June 1995; ‘Deliverence’, Anthony Gardner, Harpers & Queen, December 1995; ‘Six of the best’, Arts & Books, Independent 10 June 1995; ‘Hot Date’, Harpers & Queen, June 1995; Rebecca Hossack on Luke Elwes, Art Review June 1995

Group shows: Centenary, Contemporary British Art & the National Trust, Christie’s, London (including Adrian Berg, Jeffery Camp, Wendy Connelly, Dennis Creffield, Maggie Hambling, John Hubbard, Simon Lewty, Michael Porter, Peter Randall-Page); President’s choice, Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London.

Travels to Sweden & Ireland

1996

Group shows: Endangered Spaces, Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) Christies, London. Curated by Nicholas Usherwood (artists include Norman Adams, Adrian Berg, Graham Crowley, Chis Drury, Jennifer Durrant, Hamish Fulton, Richard Long, David Nash, Michael Porter). Foundation for Art, Royal Academy Friends Room, Nov-Dec 1996; Bayer Earth Art Prize, Mall Galleries London (Highly Commended).

Reviews & articles: Natalie Wheen, Artists & the Sea, BBC Radio Four interview, 28 August 1996; Iain Gale, The Independent, 6 September 1996; ‘The White House’, House & Garden March 1996

1997                           

Artist member on expedition to Mount Kailash, Tibet

Group shows: 14th Annual Open, Royal Overseas League, London & Edinburgh; Connaught Brown Gallery, London

Reviews & articles: Mark Tully, Something Understood, BBC Radio Four, 22 May1997; Fiona Sturgis, Art Desires, Independent on Sunday, 10 August 1997; ‘Luke Elwes’, Sue Carpenter, Telegraph 1 November 1997; ‘Luke Elwes, Look before you think’, Modern Painters, Winter 1997; ‘Luke Elwes, Serene Highness’, Harpers & Queen March 1997

1998               

Pilgrim, Art First, Cork Street, London feb- March 1998 (solo) ‘Luke Elwes: Psychological Geodesist’, Andrew Lambirth, exhibition catalogue.   

Exhibition reviews: ‘Luke Elwes’, Nicholas Usherwood, Galleries Magazine, March 1998; Camden New Journal, 21 January 1999

Group shows: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition; Norton Rose Collection, Royal College of Art London September 1998

1999               

Group shows: The Hunting Group Art Prizes, London and Bath. (shortlisted); New Art at Home House,  London (with Nigel Ellis, Rosie Snell & Dan Perfect)

‘Crossing’ mural painting commissioned for Worth Abbey, Sussex

 Travels to Asia Minor: walking through Cappadocia.

2000   

Moves to Osea Island 2000-2007. Begins new series of works on paper.

Sanctuary, Art First, Cork Street, London (solo) ‘Sanctuary’, Nicholas Usherwood, exhibition catalogue, March 2000 Exhibition review: ‘Luke Elwes’, Liam Hanley, Galleries Magazine, March 2000

Group shows: Five British Artists, Galerie Vieille du Temple, Paris; Art 2000, London Art Fair; Art Paris, Carrousel de Louvre; Starting A Collection, Art First, London.

2001               

Galerie Vieille du Temple, Paris (solo)

Group shows: 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Art First, London; Starting A Collection, Art First, London;

Sam Francis: A Floating World, Broadbent catalogue essay, Luke Elwes June 2001 ‘Crossing’, Reclaiming the Landscape of our lives, Mark Barrett OSB (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2001)

2002

The Osea Paintings, Art First, Cork Street, London April-May 2002 (solo) Art First New York, October- November 2002 (solo)

Group shows: Water’s edge, Art First, London (Luke Elwes, Anthony Whishaw, Lino Mannocci) ‘Along the Waterline’, Andrew Lambirth, exhibition essay, May 2002

Travels to USA (NYC & Maine) & India (Kerala)

2003   

Look, Stranger! Art First, London (Luke Elwes, Alex Lowery, Bridget MacDonald) 

Articles: A Broader Outlook, Modern Painters, Spring 2003

Group shows: RA summer exhibition; Starting A Collection, Art First, London

2004

Compass, Art First, Cork Street, London (solo) with text by Andrew Lambirth, Nicholas Usherwood and the artist, 2004. Reviews : ‘Luke Elwes at Art First’, Sue Hubbard, The Independent, 21 September 2004;

Group exhibition: Slow Art, Broadbent Gallery, London

Start first of an annual series of lithographic prints for ETOA, printed by Curwen Press. Article: Luke Elwes Lithographs, Simon Goodley, Daily Telegraph 20.2.2004

RMC Sandhurst: Resurrection commission for Chapel of Christ the King. Articles: ‘Resurrection’,  Raynes Minns, Art & Christianity Enquiry, No 43,  july 2005; ‘Resurrection’, Luke Elwes, Crysalis Arts (NZ), Jan 2006

Travels to Morocco (Atlas Mountains and Djebel Sarhro).

2005-07

MA Art History, Birkbeck College London University

2005   

Flowing Ground, works on paper, Broadbent Gallery, London (solo)

Group exhibitions: Royal Academy summer exhibition; Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition

2006  

Travels to Belize, Guatemala, California             

Group exhibitions: Translations, work from the national gallery, Art First, London: Cobbold & Judd, Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk;  Celeste Art Prize, Truman Brewery, London

2007   

Moves to Landermere on the Essex marshes (2007- today). Begins new body of work on paper & meets Robert Macfarlane. The West & India in Contemporary Art: Masters dissertation, Birkbeck University of London 2007

Refugia, Art First, Cork Street, London (solo) Anthony Fawcett, Refugia, catalogue essay, Art First 2007

Reviews: Nicholas Usherwood, Galleries Magazine, September 2007; Sacha Craddock, Critics Choice, Axisweb.org, February 2007

Group shows: Mapping, Bury Art Gallery, Manchester Museum + Archives (April – July 2007) (survey show including work by Layla Curtis, Hamish Fulton, Langlands & Bell, Richard Long, Cornelia Parker & Simon Patterson). Broadbent Gallery, London; Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London; Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition, London.

Gli Amici Pittori Di Londra, Galleria Ceribelli, Bergamo & Galleria Ghelfi, Vicenza, Italy. Lino Mannocci, London Painter friends, catalogue essay, Galeria Ceribelli 2007 Gli Amici Pittori Di Londra, Edited by Lino Mannocci (Lubrina Editore, 2007)

Reviews: ‘Swinging London’, Domenico Montalto, Avvenire 20.6.2007; ‘More means worse’, Andrew Lambirth, Spectator 3.9.2007

2008

Expedition to Kingdom of Mustang in the Himalayas (April-May 2008) Travels to Jersey with Alex Lowery & Bridget Macdonald; further travels to Venice, Bergamo, St Petersburg

Group shows: Genius Loci, Galleria Ceribelli, Bergamo, Italy (with Arturo Di Stefano, Glenys Johnson, Alex Lowery & Lino Mannocci). Genius Loci, Luke Elwes (Galleria Ceribelli, Lubrina Editore, 2008); Khulla Dhoka, Asian Art Festival, ROSL London

Kettles Yard, Cambridge 2008 (Hilton catalogue & talk) Catalogue text for exhibition Roger Hilton, Swinging out into the Void at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge University 2008

2009   

Luke Elwes: Peintures Recente, Galerie Marceau Bastille, Paris (solo)

Secret Water, works on paper, Broadbent Gallery, London (solo)

Group shows: L’Isle Joyeuse, Falle Fine Art, St.Helier, Jersey (with Alex Lowery & Bridget Macdonald); Five London Painters, Hester Gallery, Leeds (with Maurice Cockrill, Stephen Chambers, Lino Mannocci & Christopher Wood); Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition, London.

Reviews: Nicholas Usherwood, L'Isle Joyeuse, Galleries Magazine, September 2009:  Sheena Hastings, Yorkshire Post, 9 October 2009

Travels to Egypt, South Africa & Namibia

2010

‘Another Country’ Estorick Collection, London (with Tony Bevan, Andrejz Jackowski, Tim Hyman, Merlin James, Lino Mannocci, Glenys Johnson, Arturo di Stefano, and Alex Lowery). Another Country, edited by Luke Elwes (Estorick Collection, London, 2010)

Reviews: Brendan Prendeville, Another Country, catalogue essay, Estorick collection 2010; Andrew Lambirth, Another Country, The Spectator, 12 June 2010; Charles Darwent, Another Country, The Independent, 9 May 2010; Ten London Artists at the Estorick Collection, artdaily.org, 28.4.2010; Nicholas Usherwood, Another Country, Galleries Magazine May 2010

Group shows: Critics Choice, Browse & Darby, London (selected by Andrew Lambirth)

Travels to Sri Lanka

2011   

Silent Kingdom, Adam Gallery, London (solo) Andrew Lambirth, Silent Kingdom, catalogue essay, Adam Gallery 2011  

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London (previously exhibited in 2009, 2007 2005, 2003, 1998, 1995)

Invited to give an ‘Artist’s Eye’ talk at the National Gallery London: JMW Turner’s Evening Star, June 2011

2012

Constellation, Adam Gallery, London & Bath (solo) With text by Brendan Prendeville & Robert Macfarlane (Adam Gallery London 2012) Review: New Work by Luke Elwes, The Artcurator.com, 9 January 2012 

Celestial Confetti: work on paper, North House Gallery, Essex (solo)

Group shows: Cross country, Broadbent Gallery, London (with Andrew Vass & Kate Palmer); Threadneedle Prize for Painting 2012, London.

Writer in residence at Abstractcritical.com (until 2014)

Travels to India (Rajasthan)

2013

Awarded a grant to study at the Vermont Studio Center USA.

The Water Diaries 2000 – 2013, Young Gallery, Salisbury October 2013 (solo)

Group show: Singer & Friedlander/Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition, London.

2014

Writing on water, Adam Gallery, London & Bath (solo) with poems by Todd McCarty & Maureen Ewing (Adam Gallery London 2014)

Reviews: Andrew Lambirth, The Spectator, 29 March 2014; The Art Curator.com, New work by Luke Elwes, 23 March 2014; Nicholas Usherwood, Cork St & Beyond, March 2014

Luke Elwes & Roman River, The Minories, Colchester UK (solo)

Reviews & articles: Est Interview (Martin Bewick) Dunlin Press 2014; Libby Purves, Est, Country Life, April 2015; Neil D’Arcy-Jones, Luke lives on the edge, Essex County Standard

Group shows: Radiance | Sladers Yard Gallery, Dorset UK (with Alex Lowery); Garden, Campden Gallery (with Stephen Chambers & Tom Hammick)

Travels to Tunisia, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand.

2015

Artist in residence at the Albers Foundation, Newhaven Connecticut USA

Reflection Campden Gallery UK (solo) exhibition catalogue with text by Martin Bewick & the artist (Campden Gallery 2015)

Albers Foundation Broadbent Gallery London (solo)

Group shows: Vital signs: 12 London Artists | Clifford Chance, London & Galleria Ceribelli, Italy. Touring to Bergamo, Turin & Pisa. (with Bevan, Lebrun, Hyman, Jackowski, James, Johnson, Lowry, Mannocci, Newbolt, Di Stefano, Verity); Segni di Londra | Fondazione Bottari Lattes, Monforte d’Alba | Italy; Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (curated by Tess Jaray), London; Cobbold & Judd, Aldeburgh Festival (with Maggi Hambling, Patrick George)

2015 Christmas poetry commission by Andrew Lambirth

2016

Floating World National Trust, Flatford Mill (solo)

Article: Patrick Barkham on Osea Island, The Guardian 8 October 2016

Group shows: Sladers Yard Gallery, UK (with Emma Stibborn, Alex Lowery, Daisy Cook); Segni di Londra | Museo della Grafica, Palazzo Lanfranchi | Pisa, Italy

Travels to Bulgaria (Rhodope mountains & Danube delta)

2017

Floating World, Adam Gallery London & Bath (solo) Exhibition catalogue with text by Luke Elwes (Adam Gallery London 2017)

Gli Amici Pittori di Londra Galeria Ceribelli Bergamo May-July 2017 London Painters in Italy, text by Catherine Lampert (Lubrina Editore, 2017)

2018

Travels to India; journey along River Ganges

Group show: Currents, Sladers Yard Gallery Article: Shifting Patterns by Anna Powell , Bridport Times September 2018

2019

Travels to India: Ellora & Ajanta.  

‘Passage’ Frestonian Gallery London, February-March 2019 (solo)

Reviews: Colin Gleadell, The Telegraph, 19 February 2019; Barbara Mazzoleni, L’Eco di Bergamo, 19.3.2019

Group shows: What is Landscape? | Galleria Ceribelli, Italy May-July 2019 (with catalogue text by Giorgio Agamben); SAID Business School | Oxford University

2020

Travels to India: Gujarat & Rann of Kutch

Major commission for Freshfields Contemporary art collection & two short studio films made by Toby Elwes.

Group shows: The Green Fuse | Frestonian Gallery, London (including Adrian Berg, Tim Braden & Bridget Riley); Natural Beauty | North House Gallery, Essex UK

2021

‘Luke Elwes: Landermere’ Frestonian Gallery London, November-December 2021 (solo)

2022

Group shows: Lustrum Frestonian | 5 year survey, Frestonian Gallery, London; Vision + The Visionary | Myungwon Museum, Kookmin University, Seoul (Bridget Riley + Luke Elwes, Sammy Lee + Vakki)

Artist in residence at Ballinglen Foundation, County Mayo, Ireland

2023

Vision & The Visionary | Luke Elwes & Bridget Riley. Frestonian Gallery London , January-February 2023 (2 person show)

Review: ‘Luke Elwes | Bridget Riley’, exhibition of the week, THE WEEK, 11 February 2023

2024

‘Luke Elwes: Constellation’ Frestonian Gallery London, April-May 2024 (solo); with exhibiton essay by Andrew Lambirth.