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 major collaborative solo exhibition by contemporary British artist Onya McCausland. Expanding on her celebrated practice and her recent solo presentation, Tailings, at CLOSE Gallery in Somerset, this new London iteration presents a profound evolution of her environmental research. Opening 10 October 2026 running through 16 January 2027, the exhibition will feature an extensive programme, including special opening hours during Frieze Week and an exclusive East End Day event.

The Core Thematic: The Residues

The newly conceived title, The Residues, speaks directly to the very essence of the exhibition's core thematic. McCausland’s work explores the afterlife of industrial processes, transforming materials born from environmental disturbance into quiet, minimalist, and luminous abstractions.

Central to her methodology is the creation of bespoke paints made from waste ochre generated by decommissioned coal mines. Working closely with the UK’s Coal Authority, McCausland takes industrial by products substances left behind by quarrying, mining, and water treatment and reframes this "waste" into a complex, site-specific language of colour and place. The works act not as passive landscapes, but as material evidence and compressed records of geological and human history.

A Shared Ethos of Sustainability

This exhibition marks a powerful synergy between CLOSE Gallery and Proposition Studios, a partnership built on a deeply shared ethos of ecological responsibility and environmental regeneration.

• CLOSE Gallery has long maintained a strict commitment to supporting art that confronts climate concerns and examines our evolving relationship with the natural world.

• Proposition Studios, led by Executive Chairman and Founder Daniel J. Hudson, has a historic foundation rooted in biodiverse farming, decentralisation, and ecological alternative futures. From pioneering creative agroforestry collaborations at Wakelyns to facilitating large-scale environmental art spaces, Hudson's vision mirrors McCausland's material honesty.

By bridging CLOSE’s roots in the rural Somerset landscape with Proposition’s vibrant urban ecology in Bethnal Green, the collaboration fosters a crucial cross-regional dialogue on how art can ethically respond to the Anthropocene.

Key Inspirations: John Latham and Kettle’s Yard

The Residues will highlight McCausland’s prominent conceptual inspirations, most notably conceptual artist John Latham’s seminal work, File Earth. As a founder of the Artist Placement Group, Latham viewed the landscape as an archival repository of human activity, using systemic files to question material value and industry. McCausland expands this lineage, similarly treating the earth's surface as an active archive. Her work functions as an extension of Latham's philosophies, examining shifts in matter as permanent socio-ecological traces.

In tandem with her paintings, the exhibition will screen McCausland’s highly acclaimed film, originally shown at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge. The moving image piece focuses on the micro-movements and cosmic behaviour of particles of chalk, offering a meditative, macro-lens exploration of elemental white earth that beautifully complements the heavy, mineral ochres of her canvas work.