CLOSE Gallery and Proposition Announce The Residues by Onya McCausland: A Landmark Collaborative Exhibition Redefining Art, Ecology, and Material Memory

CLOSE Gallery and Proposition Studios are thrilled to announce The Residues, a solo exhibition by Onya McCausland at Proposition Bethnal Green on Friday 9th October, 6:30-8:30pm.

The Residues presents new works by Onya McCausland, continuing her investigation into landscapes transformed by extraction, industry and environmental change.

McCausland creates her paintings using materials collected from industrial land, mine tailings and waste dams, transforming these residues into dense, site-specific colour. Through burning, milling and refining, their tones, textures and densities are altered, preserving traces of the geology, industrial processes and environmental histories of the sites from which they came.

Her paintings explore landscapes shaped by post-extractive change: places where chemical balances have been disrupted, materials displaced and environments fundamentally transformed. Rather than treating waste as something separate from the landscape, McCausland considers it part of its contemporary material history.

The resulting works operate less as representations of landscape than as material documents. Their surfaces carry traces of extraction, transformation and ecological aftermath, making visible the lasting changes industry has inscribed into the earth.

Presented in collaboration with Proposition, The Residues reflects a shared commitment to ecological awareness, responsible stewardship and artistic practices that respond to environmental change. The collaboration brings together McCausland’s material and site-specific research with Proposition’s broader engagement with ecological interdependence, regenerative practice and the relationship between art, environment and community.