Cavaliero Finn returns to London Art Fair 2026 as part of Platform: The Unexpected, a curated section spotlighting galleries whose artists challenge conventions of material, process, and meaning. Selected and led by art historian and author Dr Ferren Gipson, Platform brings together practices that reward close looking and sustained attention. For this edition, Cavaliero Finn presents new work by Alice Foxen, Isabel Fletcher, Ikuko Iwamoto, Richard McVetis, and Sun Kim, uniting textile, ceramic, and sculptural approaches that foreground material intelligence, labour, and transformation. Together, the presentation reflects the gallery’s ongoing commitment to artists who reimagine contemporary craft through experimentation, sensitivity, and conceptual depth.
Commenting on Cavaliero Finn’s selection, Dr Ferren Gipson said: “I’m so excited about all the artists they’re presenting – in particular Alice Foxen, Richard McVetis, and Isabel Fletcher who are each exploring process and medium in distinct and fascinating ways.”
Highlights of the Cavaliero Finn presentation at London Art Fair
Isabel Fletcher Satin Overlap series
The central textile work on the stand is Satin Overlap, developed through a collaboration with Freed of London, the renowned ballet and theatrical shoe manufacturer. Fletcher sourced satin offcuts from the pattern-cutting floor – materials bearing the absent traces of shoes moulded to dancers’ feet. What would ordinarily be waste is reconfigured into a suspended textile sculpture through layering, piercing, stitching, draping, and gathering.
Negative space is accentuated using blue, red, and yellow threads referencing the industrial markings of the Freed workshop. When installed, the satin surface reflects light softly, while layered forms cast shifting shadows, prompting reflection on material value, labour, and consumption.
Isabel Fletcher lives and works in London. She completed an MA in Textiles (Mixed Media) at the Royal College of Art in 2023, where she was taught by fellow exhibitor Richard McVetis. Her work has been exhibited at the Design Museum, the Art Workers’ Guild, and Salts Mill, West Yorkshire.
Ikuko Iwamoto Ghosts from the Sea series
One of Cavaliero Finn’s longest-represented artists, Ikuko Iwamoto presents work from her Ghosts from the Sea series. Raised near the sea in Japan, Iwamoto’s practice reflects a deep concern for marine ecosystems and the destructive impact of modern fishing practices.
Her sculptures combine spiky porcelain fish forms with antique Japanese wooden objects such as print drawers, dough trays, stools, ladders, and chopping boards, creating a quiet tension between fragility and endurance, past and future. In Japanese culture, particularly within Ainu traditions, salmon symbolises sustenance, perseverance, and spiritual connection. Here, the fish appear as spectral presences.
Trained initially under ceramic master Asuka Tsuboi in Japan, Iwamoto later studied at Camberwell and the Royal College of Art, completing her MA in Ceramic & Glass in 2006. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the V&A and Manchester Art Gallery. Recent accolades include winning the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize in 2019 and the Wakayama Artist Prize in 2023, being selected for Homo Faber: The Journey of Life in Venice in 2024 and the Triennale of Kogei in Kanazawa in 2025.
Richard McVetis Orbit series
Developed over the past five years, Richard McVetis’s Orbit series reflects an ongoing fascination with outer space, time, and human perception. Using what he describes as “rendering with stitch,” McVetis constructs works that sit between drawing, textile, and sculpture.
Sparse stitches punctuate dense wool surfaces like distant points of light, evoking planetary forms and imagined timescapes. Repetition, slowness, and physical labour are integral to the work, offering moments of stillness and attention within an increasingly accelerated world.
Born in South Africa in 1983, McVetis lives and works in London and is currently Interim Co-Head of Textiles at the Royal College of Art. His work has been widely exhibited internationally, including at Kettle’s Yard, Arnolfini, the Design Museum, and the British Textile Biennial. Recent awards include Bronze at Cheongju Craft Biennale (2025) and a Cove Park Residency (2025/26).
Alice Foxen Soft Pillow Series
Alice Foxen’s ceramic sculptures originate from encounters with discarded domestic objects found on London’s streets. Once-soft materials—foam, fabric, padding—are translated into fired clay, preserving creases, slumps, and folds. The work holds a tension between fragility and permanence, presence and absence.
Through slow, layered processes, Foxen seeks to capture the immediacy of these chance encounters, imbuing the objects with quiet humour and pathos. Foxen completed her MA at the Royal College of Art in 2022. Her work has been shown widely in the UK and internationally, including the European Ceramic Context Triennial (Bornholm) and British Ceramics Biennial. She has received numerous awards and residencies, including the Windgate Fellowship at Vermont Studio Center.
Sun Kim Folded Vessel Series
Cavaliero Finn will present a series of folded and geometric ceramic vessels by Sun Kim. Though wheel-thrown, the works are cut, reassembled, and refined into sculptural forms that recall origami and architectural planes. Subtle punctures animate the surface, while restrained colour palettes and rhythmic groupings create a sense of quiet harmony.
Kim’s intuitive responsiveness to clay, technical mastery, and playfulness result in vessels that feel soft and textile-like, resonating naturally with the surrounding works on the stand.
Born in Korea and raised in Saudi Arabia and Brazil, Kim trained in São Paulo before further study at Alfred University, New York. She moved to London in 2004 and continues to work as an assistant to Edmund de Waal. Her work is held in public collections including Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art (Japan) and the Ulster Museum.
We are excited to bring together a group of artists who are all experts in their field, pushing the limits of their chosen material in new and unexpected ways. We love how each artist brings a new narrative to their chosen media, mastering skills steeped in tradition such as embroidery, stitch, sculpting and wheel throwing to produce completely unique and contemporary work that focuses on process and the action of undoing and doing.” Juliana Cavaliero
Cavaliero Finn is exhibiting at Stand P8, London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, Islington, N1 0QH from 21st to 25th January, 2026. Find information and tickets here.
