Wari Art, in collaboration with CM Art Advisory, announces the launch of Terraforming: Mapping Space Through Pigment – International Artists Reimagining London, a striking exhibition that unites five international artists whose creative practices use pigment, texture, and material to construct vivid, alternative geographies.
Opening during Frieze Week, the exhibition highlights the power of colour as a radical statement of presence and belonging. By transforming London’s typically muted palette, the artists collectively reimagine the city through the lens of global migration and cultural convergence.
“These artists transform pigment into geography, making color not only a material but also a vessel for memory, change, and belonging. Their works trace conceptual terrains where global identities converge and resonate.” said curator and art advisor, Celeste Melgar.
The exhibition features new and recent works by Laura Grinberga (Latvia), Bissy Riva (Peru/Italy/USA/Kenya), Mariella Smilas (Portugal), Nelson Hernández (Chile), and Viktoryia Shydlouskaya Dijk (Belarus/Netherlands).
Each artist weaves fragments of memory, displacement, and cultural hybridity into luminous cartographies of place, mapping their place in the citythrough pigment rather than boundaries.
Located just minutes from the British Museum, an institution long associated with framing cultural identities through collected artefacts, Terraforming: Mapping Space Through Pigment. asserts a contemporary counterpoint.
Where the museum reflects on the past, this exhibition situates London’s present: a pluralistic, multicultural city shaped by artistic migration, even as political rhetoric turns increasingly hostile to difference.
As Selects, each artist will benefit from a tailored six-month program that includes press features, curated exhibitions, studio visits, collector introductions, personalized mentorship, and ongoing visibility across our expansive network.
The exhibit invites viewers to imagine pigment as geography itself, prompting reflection on how the forms of the cities it colours might transform. This is the central line of inquiry guiding the show.
Opening to the public from 16–19 October, with private viewings on the 16th, the presentation brings together artists from the inaugural Wari X CM Art Advisory Selects cohort. Their work, evocative and immersive, calls out to be experienced in person.
The exhibition also marks a significant moment for the program, which operates in six-month cycles to provide tailored support for emerging talents navigating the evolving landscape of the art world.
As part of Selects, each artist receives a dedicated program that encompasses press features, curated exhibitions, studio visits, introductions to collectors, personalized mentorship, and sustained visibility across an expansive network.
It shows the following artists:
- Laura Grinberga, a textile-based artist that creates environments which absorb cultural memory and reframe the interactions and consciousness presence in space.
- Bissy Riva merges textiles and painting to channel sensory landscapes from her travels across Peru, Italy, Kenya, and the United States.
- Mariella Smilas transforms language and memory into delicate painted palimpsests.
- Nelson Hernández constructs layered pictorial vocabularies from migration and cultural intersection, bridging Chile with London.
- Viktoryia Shydlouskaya Dijk distills fleeting impressions of the self in space and place into vibrant pigment and gestural abstraction.
Together, their works transform London’s famed greyness into a resonant landscape of colour—where cultural identities overlap, collide, and ultimately enliven the city’s fabric.
Exhibition Details
Cartographies of Pigment– International Artists Reimagining London Museum Street, Bloomsbury , London.
16–19 October 2025 | Frieze Week
