Artnet on OFFLINE, Gallery Les Bois’s inaugural exhibition on Portobello Road, Notting Hill
The gallery's inaugural exhibition features work previously showcased at the 60th Venice Biennale.
Originally published by Artnet Gallery Network on 16 July 2025. Read the original feature on Artnet News.
OFFLINE and the costs of digital saturation
A new show in London at Gallery Les Bois takes sharp focus on the current digital zeitgeist and its many facets—from digital saturation and the pressure to constantly engage across platforms to the environmental and human costs of the ever-growing online ecosystem.
"Offline," which is on view through July 22, 2025, in the city's Chelsea neighborhood, is also the gallery's inaugural exhibition, introducing audiences to its mission of bridging sustainability and contemporary art. Helmed by founder and director Claire-Julia Hill, Gallery Les Bois first began operations in 2024 with the intention of building a new type of gallery model that strives for environmental responsibility and artistic excellence in equal measure.
Founder and Director Claire-Julia Hill (at right) at the opening exhibition "OFFLINE." Photo © Gallery Les Bois. Photographer: Ryan O'Donoghue.
"The core ethos of Gallery Les Bois is to place sustainability, integrity, and aesthetic excellence at the center of everything we do, using these values to guide our curatorial programming," Hill told Artnet News earlier this year. "Our mission is to champion artists who are redefining contemporary art through crucially ambitious and ecologically conscious practices."
Volcan at the heart of the exhibition
Visitors look at work by Volcan at "OFFLINE." Courtesy © Gallery Les Bois. Photographer: Ryan O'Donoghue.
At the heart of "Offline" is Volcan, an artist duo based in Notting Hill who have gained recognition for their major projects that deal with themes of identity, narrative, and survival. Featuring pieces from two bodies of work, the first, "Offline Series," was exhibited in the Cameroon Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. Comprised of 20 portraits of refugees who died crossing the Mediterranean, the subjects are shown blurred and with an incomplete delicate white over the center—alluding to the symbol that appears when an image is loading. Here, the "loading" symbol is made poignant, alluding to incomplete journeys and lost life.
The other central body of work to the show is the "Roadworks Series," in which materials commonly found in urban settings, like tar, stone, industrial paint, and other detritus, have been repurposed and upcycled to create works that speak to pervasive questions around infrastructure, displacement, and the effects of technological progress.
Material reuse across the wider exhibition
Visitors at "OFFLINE." Courtesy © Gallery Les Bois. Photographer: Ryan O'Donoghue.
With further contributions to the show from artists Steve Foster, Oliver Tanay, Miranda Carter, and Jasmine Pradissitto, explorations of ecology and society via material experimentation are broadened. Pradissitto's new work absorbs pollutants, turning contamination into something creatively generative.
Despite its recent establishment and even the even more recent debut of its first exhibition, Gallery Les Bois has already established a solid foundation for its broader program, set to launch later this year. And what Hill and Gallery Les Bois have already shown is that neither sustainability nor artistic rigor need to be sacrificed but are instead generative to one another.
"Offline" is on view at Gallery Les Bois through July 22, 2025.
Editorial clarification: Gallery Les Bois records place OFFLINE on Portobello Road, Notting Hill, from 9–22 July 2025, and identify Oliver Akdeniz as the exhibiting artist. The original Artnet article refers to Chelsea and names Oliver Tanay.
Gallery Les Bois perspective
Published in July 2025, the Artnet feature records a past exhibition. OFFLINE ran from 9–22 July 2025 on Portobello Road in Notting Hill. For collectors, the exhibition’s material experimentation is considered alongside beauty, conceptual rigour, provenance, condition and each artist’s wider practice. Sustainability can inform, but not replace, those judgements. Selected work may be potentially investment-worthy within the context of an individual collection.
Explore the gallery’s artists, available artworks, events, collector guides and art advisory service, or learn more about Gallery Les Bois.
Questions about OFFLINE and the Artnet feature
What was OFFLINE at Gallery Les Bois?
OFFLINE was Gallery Les Bois’s inaugural exhibition, held from 9–22 July 2025 on Portobello Road in Notting Hill. It explored digital saturation, displacement, ecology and material reuse through contemporary art.
Which artists were included in OFFLINE?
The Gallery Les Bois archive records work by Volcan, Steve Foster, Jasmine Pradissitto, Julian Emsley, Miranda Carter and Oliver Akdeniz. The original Artnet feature centres on Volcan and also names Steve Foster, Oliver Tanay, Miranda Carter and Jasmine Pradissitto; the editorial clarification above records the gallery archive’s identification of Oliver Akdeniz.
How did Volcan’s work address digital saturation and displacement?
Volcan’s OFFLINE Series used blurred portraits and the visual language of a loading symbol to evoke interrupted journeys and lives lost during Mediterranean crossings. Their Roadworks Series repurposed tar, stone, industrial paint and urban detritus to consider infrastructure, displacement and technological progress.
Can I still view works connected with OFFLINE?
OFFLINE has closed, but you can revisit the exhibition archive, browse available artworks and artist pages, or contact Gallery Les Bois to discuss works connected with the artists.
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