Passing Through
Group Show
12 June – 4 July 2026

Jess Swney, Lewis Vivian Cosgrave, Jackson Harry and Hugo Van Dorsser

To move through a street is to collect its elements and digest. Its windows and weeds build into the landscape of a city, each alley fleshing out its brick and mortar into something more tangible - a pace, a rhythm of life. In Twentysix Gallery’s new group exhibition ‘Passing Through’ is the transitory place of ‘between’ - corners and a backyard, parked cars and sidewalks - are all subject to Jess Swney, Lewis Vivian Cosgrave, Jackson Harry and Hugo Van Dorsser’s material presence. A slow piecing together and remaking of cityscapes - abroad and at home. 

Each of the four artists work closely with their respective materials in distinct processes, all of which allow for a certain sense of memory. Jess’s newest works draw on her time in Morocco on residency last year, where she learnt traditional weaving techniques from local artisans. Now, while on a new residency in Berlin, her tufted rug ‘paintings’ look back at this time - documenting geometric motifs of window guards she observed while there - domestic and architectural details, patterns and repeated forms, rendered by repetition and a labour intensive process. 

For Lewis, images of the everyday Aotearoa are collected over time. Traces left behind, residue from the streets he has wandered are translated into fleeting images that are gradually softened, edited and reworked through a transfer process and paint. Repetition, erosion, and layering - embedding presence of maker into the work and finding the pulse of a certain sweet monotony. Streets walked as part of daily routine, the back garden in which you stare at each evening. Tender. A dazed memory. 

Where there is softness, there is always the opposing to be found. Jackson’s bronze objects grounding the gallery in a feeling of nostalgia, of industry. Now based in Melbourne, the artist works with a reverence for traditional materials and technique. His sculptures of cars ‘frozen in place’ are both solid and weathered, eroded - coloured patina becoming a motif of passing time and an industrial quality that has been lost to years of change. 

Speaking from the same vein of nostalgia, Hugo’s paintings are an exploration of the innocence of childhood, and the subconscious who still visits there. With a primary colour palette and stickfigure illustrations of ponytails and flying cars, his is a world that imagines the street in recollection. Separating us from the years of change that both swell streets then steal them away from a city, a village. Years that see our growing footprint, and build a lingering afterimage at the corner of our eye. An echo of our steps through a place, passing through.

Passing Through runs from 12 June – 4 July 2026, with an opening celebration on Thursday, 11 June at 5pm.