June 4, 2026 |
Enter the Maximillian William Gallery on London’s rich thoroughfare of Mortimer Street and you’ll be greeted with multiple oversized black square canvases, splashed, dashed and splodged with scarlett, canary yellow and orange paint. Striking and dynamic, the works have been created by Reginald Sylvester II for his fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, titled Until Then. Open today, the exhibition is open until August 1.
When I Would Do Good, Evil Is Present With Me, 2026
Committed to fostering community, working collaboratively with artists over time and platforming social and cultural issues, the New Jersey-based artist has created an assortment of diverse works for the central London gallery over time. Stark, blood red pieces, all titled Offering, were crafted in 2021 using acrylic, rope and rubber over wood, and displayed in a show titled Resilience Beyond Refusal that the gallery took to Expo Chicago the following year. Another greyscale piece titled Memory was created in 2023 and featured a scattering of studio debris pasted onto black rubber stretched across a raw metal framework. In other works, such as 2021’s Praise Our Way Out Of The Grave and Four Corners, Sylvester scribbles paint on top of olive-coloured tent canvas produced for the military. For this new show, Sylvester has threaded all these aspects together to produce a developed meditation on his work thus far.
Using rubber stretched over aluminium, discarded military shelter fabric and abstract painting techniques, the new works explore the meaning of readymade materials, the history of art and the tension between material, history and identity. By using materials created for military use, Sylvester nods to political and social upheaval in the US – especially around the ‘60s and ‘70s – the period from which the material is sourced. In doing so, the artist explores how these physical objects can carry history inside of them. The same approach is true of his use of rubber. Used as a reference to Africa and its painful history of colonialism (the global demand after the invention of inflatable tires resulted in the violent plunder of rubber-rich areas like in the Congo Basin), Sylvester’s work addresses the past with an unflinching lens.
The brightly coloured paints act somewhat as an antidote to the heaviness of his material references. Conveying themes of vitality, the shades Sylvester uses are selected to evoke images of foliage and nature. In Sylvester’s layered work, destruction can be met with regrowth. A deeply considered offering from an artist honing his craft with every show, this isn’t one to miss.
Until Then is open now at Maximilian William Gallery and runs until August 1. Photography courtesy of Maximillian Gallery.
Black Unto the Ground, 2026
