About

The figures that populate the enigmatic paintings of Nicholas Marschner (b. 1995, UK) often stand apart, like shades trapped within their own recollections. At times basked in a gauze of sunlight, at others woozily nocturnal, the mise-en-scène of these groupings share a world fractured or only partially formed. Indeed, the featureless faces, heads often turned from the viewer, can give the impression of marionettes on a puppet stage, much like the wealthy hotel guests in Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (1961). But with washes of colour bleeding between the human figures and their surroundings, we’re left with an impression that beneath these masks are deep pools of feeling. Marschner has the sensibility of a puppeteer, albeit one who feels the pull of his own strings by an unseen hand. The characters that populate his scenes are carefully choreographed, placed precisely here and there, with a profound retention. These breaks gaps and elisions, make for a rich narrative around what we call ourselves.

Nicholas Marschner lives and works in Berlin. Recent exhibitions include: ‘Silent Running’, Alice Amati, London (2025); ‘Timespaces’, Galerie Elsa Meunier (Dans les yeux d’Elsa), Paris (2024); ‘Impressions’, 102metres, London (2024); ‘Shudder Mornings’, Cabin, Berlin (2024); ‘Great Expectations’, General Assembly, London (2024); ‘Nicholas Marschner’, Alice Amati (Online) (2024); ‘Intimations’, Filet Gallery, London (2023); ‘Radio Silence’, Split Gallery, London (2023); ‘Babele’, Spazio Musa, Turin (2023); ‘20 Turlow Place, London Design Festival’, London (2020); ‘On Growth and Form’, Filet Gallery, London (2019); ‘20 x 30cm’, Ace Hotel, London (2017). Marschner presented a solo booth at Art Brussels in 2024 with Alice Amati.

Kollektiv Collective is a London-based curatorial collective founded by independent curators and writers Pia Zeitzen (she/her) and Sasha Shevchenko (she/her) in 2019. Their work spans exhibition-making, publishing and collaborative research, rooted in decentralised structures and collective authorship. Engaging with a plurality of spaces, including cultural institutes, galleries and off-site locations, Kollektiv Collective approach curating as a fluid, process-led act that relies on site-specific methodology. Through said methodology, the duo grounds every project in an intersectional analysis of the historical, socio-economic, architectural, aesthetic and structural context of a given environment. Their work, which further extends into programming and writing, explores the politics of space, labour and language, foregrounding multiplicity, friction and care. 

Kollektiv Collective has previously exhibited in galleries and institutions including Austrial Cultural Forum, London; Santi, London; Palo Gallery, New York; Inspection Pit, Sussex; Generation & Display as part of London Design Festival; Des Bains, London; General Assembly, London; Tabula Rasa Gallery, London; Guts Gallery Projects, London; Kupfer, London; SET Woolwich, London; Christie’s, London; and Swiss Church, London.