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Imperfect

Imperfect is a body of paintings exploring the fragmented body as a site of identity, vulnerability and transformation. Moving away from smoother abstraction, Brewster embraces interruption, layering and incompleteness, inviting us to reconsider what makes something feel whole.

While continuing a long-standing exploration of the female body, Imperfect also marks an important shift within Brewster's painting practice. Having begun with Indian ink on white paper before moving towards increasingly colourful canvases, this body of work introduces black as the ground itself. Rejecting the assumption that white is a neutral starting point, the paintings instead establish black as the baseline from which colour, form and identity emerge.

"The white sheet of paper is not neutral, neither is the black canvas."
— Simone Brewster

Throughout the exhibition, abstracted female forms appear and dissolve across richly layered surfaces. In the triptych Sitting Sisters I, II & III, inspired by Brewster and her two sisters, the black canvas becomes both a physical and symbolic space—reframing the body not through absence, but through presence. Rather than treating black as shadow or void, these works reclaim it as a place of depth, complexity and possibility.