Alex Farrar, Lennart Lahuis: Frontspace

Dürst Britt & Mayhew is proud to present a duo exhibition by Alex Farrar and Lennart Lahuis. The Frontspace exhibition brings together two series of recent works, where everyday objects and materials are transformed using highly unconventional printmaking techniques. Instead of making standard copies, both artists push their materials to the absolute limit to capture the poetic, invisible traces of time, memory, and information.

Alex Farrar: Moving Boxes

For years, the stressful search for secure housing dominated Alex Farrar’s life. When he finally moved into a permanent home in 2023, the immense relief inspired him to bring this personal history into his practice.

During a residency at Grafisch Atelier Hilversum, Farrar developed a way to "retire" the cardboard moving boxes he had saved and reused for over a decade. He inked, folded, and ran the actual boxes through a printing press to create unique monotype prints. He repeated this intense process until the boxes were completely worn out—no longer usable as boxes, and no longer capable of leaving an imprint. Each print is titled based on its stage in the process and how the box was catalogued by the movers.

Lennart Lahuis: Calorgraph Series

Lennart Lahuis presents his Calorgraph series, where text and imagery are literally "written in heat." The process starts with industrial metal plates that Lahuis rubs with sweaty fingers to transfer images and text taken from everyday printed media—specifically focusing on representations of "nature."

He then heats the metal plates to a scorching 300 degrees Celsius. The heat triggers a chemical reaction, creating a beautiful colour gradient on the surface while permanently baking the friction-marked text and images into the metal. The final works turn fleeting, everyday observations into durable, heat-etched archives.

ESSAY

Please click here to read a specially commissioned conversation between Alex Farrar and Lennart Lahuis