Neville Gabie and Freya Gabie

Footholds

Preview: 5 - 10 May 2026
will continue until 22 November 2026
by appointment : email danielle@daniellearnaud.com

Neville Gabie

 

Neville Gabie has created a series of short performative films taking place around Venice. Simple, but with serious intent, sometimes extremely arduous and durational, the works are a very personal response to this enigmatic place. Neville Gabie’s Experiments in Black and White XXXV - Venice documents a full day in Venice carrying a thirty litre container of water. Collected from a Venice canal, the water was poured back at the same location at the end of the day. A portrait of the city, the day’s events documented using still photographs and with a specifically composed audio.

Experiments in Black and White XXXVI - Venice is a drawing made on a train window as it travelled from Mestre to Venice Santa Lucia Station. Played in reverse, with an audio composition based on the station names of all the train stations one can travel to from Venice. The score is specifically composed and performed by Nathan Julius.

Other videos being shown include Footholds a 24 hour continuous drawing using a single repeated line with accompanying notes on what is happening in a busy, central area of the city and Experiments in Black and White XXXVII - Venice - a video work filmed at the Lido in Venice over one whole day; a performance work using two folding beach chairs.

With a background in sculpture, Neville Gabie’s practice has always been driven by working in response to specific locations or situations caught in a moment of change. Highly urbanized or distantly remote, his work is a response to the vulnerability of place. Neville Gabie’s interest is in establishing a working relationship within a particular community as a means of considering its physical, cultural or emotional geography. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa – MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London 1986/88.

 

Freya Gabie

Freya Gabie’s work responds to the city as a balancing act. More than others, Venice needs to maintain its equilibrium through systems of regulation. The works take ideas of balance and imbalance as their starting point, considering what this city might teach us about what we can control, and what we cannot.

Drawings of Coronavirus social distancing stickers in varying states of erosion, Freya Gabie’s Orbits - Panacea, visually echoes the circular imprints found on paving stones in the Campi throughout Venice. These are the vestiges of the heavy cauldrons once used to brew Theriac, also known as Venice Treacle, a complex medicinal compound long believed to be a cure for plague. First formulated by Greek physicians in the 1st century AD, Theriac remained in use for nearly two millennia as a general panacea, finally ceasing in the 1930’s.

Its recipe called for around 60 ingredients, including live viper flesh, and its preparation was a ceremonial civic event, conducted under the direct supervision of the Doge and the Venetian State. Venice’s unique position as the western gateway to the Silk Route gave the city privileged access to the rare spices and exotic materials, sourced from as far as Persia and East Asia,  that the recipe demanded. Theriac became an important resource to the city besieged with the Black Death, and a highly valued trading commodity exported across Europe.

Freya Gabie’s Refrain responds to the city’s faceless clocks - the bells that for centuries performed auditory regulation and regimentation in the city. Different bells kept canonical hours, others signalled the beginning and end of the working day, also indicating the end of the midday break, while others heralded civic celebrations, public executions or even the outbreak of plagues.

Freya Gabie is a multi-disciplinary artist, with a focus on sculpture and drawing. She is interested in highlighting unnoticed narratives manifested within different scenarios, places and objects. Often working with the familiar or ordinary, her work considers what our material culture says about contemporary society. Small, playful interactions/conversations take place between the artist and the things around her; retelling them in new form to reveal unfamiliar characteristics, highlight different histories and create an altered material inheritance. Freya Gabie studied sculpture at Chelsea College of Art and the Royal College of Art.

Footholds is our sixth project in Venice as part of an ongoing programme where artists are invited to spend time in Venice and reflect on their practice, and the city.