Arch Hades opens her first major solo exhibition in central London on 12th September. Arch Hades We Are All Just Passing Through is curated by Culturalee founder Lee Sharrock.
We Are All Just Passing Through marks the first extensive solo exhibition for artist and poet Arch Hades. Comprising evocative paintings alongside immersive sculptures and soundscapes, the exhibition presents a haunting new body of work, which draws visitors into dream-like realms that oscillate between utopia and dystopia, memory and myth, presence and passing.
Hades is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and bestselling poet with a background in politics and philosophy. Her prose underpins a rich visual art practice that merges the lyricism of her verse with compelling, multidimensional imagery. Working at the intersection of visual art and spoken word, Hades’ practice expands on the Romantic lyricism of her poetry, mining subjects such as loss and existentialism.
The exhibition presents an evolution in the artist’s creative process, pairing sculptural works with soundscapes for the first time to seek out innovative ways to combine image and spoken word and create synesthetic experiences.
Across the exhibition, viewers encounter submerged classical forms: Atlantean ruins whisper beneath the sea; androgynous figures dissolve into one another, suspended in a moment of transformation, and white egrets drift above surreal, Dali-esque structures. The frames of each work are engraved with philosophical lines derived from Hades’ poetry, serving as portals into the artist’s creative process and inviting reflection: “Love is felt most when it’s leaving”; “I wonder if you feel it, when I’m dreaming of you?”
A meditation on impermanence and the invisible architectures of feeling, the exhibition reflects back a delicate, inquisitive world that appears suspended in time – held by Hades’ words and wonder and gently probing viewers to contemplate our place within it.
Welcome to the world of Arch Hades. Stay a while, but remember: we are all just passing through.
Arch Hades’ creative practice spans painting, sculpture, performance and she is the author of six volumes of poetry. In 2021, her fourth volume of poetry, Arcadia, was sold at Christie’s in the form of an abstract animation, soundtracked by RAC and illustrated by Andrés Reisinger. Making her museum debut in Florence in 2022 with this groundbreaking work, Hades has pioneered a multidisciplinary practice in which poetry, sound and image combine to create a meditative experience that prompts viewers to confront a collective 21st Century existential journey and reflect on ways that our daily routines and mindsets have integrated with social media.
Previous exhibitions include Arch Hades at Ladbroke Hall (2024). In March 2025 Hades was among twenty-nine artists to feature work as part of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale in London to raise funds for Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. With Licht Feld Gallery, Hades has shown at international art fairs, including ZONAMACO, Art Miami and LA Art Show. Recent performances include the inauguration of the Italian Pavilion for the opening of the Biennale of Architecture in Venice, and re:VERSE, a poetry symposium at Ladbroke Hall in London.
In 2026, Hades will transform a decommissioned church in Venice for a solo exhibition timed to run alongside the 61stVenice Biennale. The exhibition will expand on the artist’s 2025 London solo, mining internal worlds and pushing the boundaries of perception.
Arch Hades We are all just passing through runs from 12th September until 21st December, 2025 at 8 Berkeley Square, London, W1J 6BU. Opening hours 10am – 6pm Tuesday-Saturday
