Next of kin

Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

Beatriz Olabarrieta

‘Next of kin’

10 Jan – 28 Feb 2026

Text by Mariel Franklin

It has been said before that Beatriz Olabarrieta approaches the gallery like a writer, layering elements and concepts through time. She’ll take the key players in an exhibition and arrange and rearrange their roles in relation to one another as well as to the material world in which they find themselves. Even the title here teases a contractual relationship, as if the works are composed from what they happen to encounter, their next of kin.

The show begins with the architecture of the space. Olabarrieta has removed the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows that compose the façade - along with thirty years’ worth of accumulated layers of emulsion, spray paint, written and overwritten edits like screwball cave paintings – and replaced them with clear glass, the originals reinserted in the gallery, re-mastering previous projects in the process.

A panel left over from an earlier show by is no longer just a temporary wall but now an installation in itself, cut-out to re-frame the façade windows and letting light back into the space. The opposite wall, built years earlier by when he was using the gallery as a studio, is also punctured to reveal more original windows, this time overlooking a storage unit.

The space is transformed, perforated, made visible through new lenses, glasses, apertures, until it folds in on itself. The only way out is in.

Downstairs, she has performed another intriguing move: removing the sculptures she *works made for the exhibition and displaying only their photos, pictures taken by the photographer hired by the gallery to document the show, a gesture that not only doubles the question of authorship but turns both artist and documentarian into performers engaged in a whole new game. Are the images records? Or do they propose new forms, new possible re-combinations? The gallery becomes a site where production isn’t fixed but ongoing, improvised and circling back on itself like the repeated repainting of the windows she repurposes – a cycle in which the city, the artist, and the building itself overwrite one another.

These two elements of the exhibition, upstairs and down, echo the two-sides of Olabarrieta’s glass panes. Her documentary photos are hung inside of the new windows, whereas the old ones now form the interior of the upstairs space. reversal, reflection in this mirrored maze of a show.

There’s a term in machine learning, ‘model collapse,’ that describes the point when an agent becomes ‘too’ creative as it looks for more and more complex patterns, eventually degrading into what appear to be hallucinations. It’s a dynamic reminiscent of the roaming mode at work here – including the email chain that led to this text, the device-spanning digressions, the back and forth of its many collapses and re-inceptions.

Every decision Olabarrieta makes proposes a subtle change that reshapes how the exhibition can be read. She’ll develop protocols on-the-go to guide material strategies, allowing them to evolve and adapt as each choice simultaneously opens and forecloses future possibilities. However, it’s her willingness to push these protocols into moments of implosion or deadlock that brings us to the point of model collapse – a field of strange and unpredictable states emerging in the grey area between 'pattern' and 'no pattern.'

In this sense, Next of kin is not so much about repurposing as it is about dynamism itself – of images, materials, bodies and concepts. A system that runs on its own momentum and invites the viewer to inhabit the recursive processes of making, unmaking and making again. It’s a live process encompassing not only ideas but the generative force of life itself.

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Beatriz Olabarrieta (b. Bilbao, Spain) lives and works between the Basque Country and London, United Kingdom. She holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Deusto, Bilbao, a degree in Sculpture from Wimbledon School of Art, London, and a Master’s degree in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London. Recent and forthcoming solo exhibitions include: Still Make City Mistakes, Nave Sierra, Madrid, ES (forthcoming, 2026); Next of Kin, Rose Easton, London, UK (2026); Proximity, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin, DE (2024); I Like to Watch, etHall, Barcelona, ES (2024); Coyote, Marta Cervera, Madrid, ES (2022); Lagom (de lugar), Okela, Bilbao, ES (2022); Medium, CentroCentro, Madrid, ES (2020); Faces, Espai 13, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, ES (2020); Stay Twice, Kunstverein Bielefeld, Bielefeld, DE (2019); Ask the Dust, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, CA, US (2019); New Clear Family, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, DE (2018); Meeting a Double Agent, Syntax, Lisbon, PT (2017); Clever to Follow Goat, Ciaccia Levi, Paris, FR (2017); The Only Way Out Is In, The Sunday Painter, London, UK (2017); Book! Don’t Tell Me What to Do, Parallel Oaxaca, Mexico City, MX (2017); Dumb Bells, Saturday Live, Serpentine Galleries, London, UK (2016); Pocketful, Platform Residency, Site Gallery, Sheffield, UK (2016); Cosmic Clap, MOT International, London, UK (2015); Plot Bunny, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK (2015); Shifty Show, Cell Project Space, London, UK (2014); Artist of the Day, Flowers Gallery, London, UK (2014); Ever Curve the Weather, solo presentation with MOT International, Opening Section, ARCO, Madrid, ES (2013); Scene 10: What Happens When All Characters Leave the Stage, curated by FormContent for the 7th Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, UK (2012); Motor Motor, Praxis Programme, Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz, ES (2012); and Foliage, MOT International, Brussels, BE (2012). Group exhibitions include: A Corner in Wheat, Dilalica, Barcelona, ES (2024, 2023); Imboscata, Bosco Sensoverde Corniola, Empoli, IT (2023); Hin und Her, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, DE (2023); Ple de Forats, Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona, ES (2023); Studio Burr / Gaviota, Madrid, ES (2023); New Works, selected by Sophie Lee, Callie’s, Berlin, DE (2022); I Wish You a Very Outside, DZIALDOV, Berlin, DE (2022); All the Living Friends, TACA, Palma de Mallorca, ES (2022); The Tongue Says Loneliness, Pradiauto, Madrid, ES (2021); Silenzio, Giorgio Galotti, IT (2020); The Wasserman Kids, Et al., San Francisco, CA, US (2020); and Counter Acts, Lethaby Gallery, London, UK (2020).

Photography by Jack Elliot Edwards.

Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Past future split attention, 2026, Misfit gallery window replacement, process drawings, Asim´s project drawing on paper, documentation by Jack Elliot Edwards, metal offcut with Asim’s project workings, folded metal offcuts with protective plastic, EPDM roofing washers, concrete screws, Glass only - 44 × 116 × 1.5 cm total space (variable) including steel - 160 × 180 × 2 cm

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Past future split attention, 2026 (alternative view)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Past future split attention, 2026 (detail)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, A cave in a window for a bull, 2026, Gallery facade window panel (8.4mm Laminated glass), sheet steel offcut, with Asim’s project drawing, MDF offcuts, aluminium roofing tape, EPDM roofing washers, concrete screws, 110 × 252 × 1.5 cm

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, A cave in a window for a bull, 2026 (alternative view)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, A cave in a window for a bull, 2026 (detail)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Hot seeing/Very corner, 2026, MDF fitted into aperture in gallery wall onto historic window overlooking landlord´s storage unit roofing, gallery facade window panel (6mm glass), MDF offcut, aluminium roofing tape, EPDM roofing washers, concrete screws, 210.5 × 159 × 1.5 cm

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Hot seeing/Very corner, 2026 (detail)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, There is no image, I love you, 2026, EPDM roofing washers, concrete screws, drawing dimensions and position of gallery facade window panel (2535 × 1535 × 6mm glass) in absentia, Dimensions variable

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, There is no image, I love you, 2026 (detail)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Hot seeing/Spot blind Buddha, 2026, MDF fitted into aperture in previous exhibition purpose built wall onto original gallery windows over looking Cambridge Heath Road, 2 gallery facade window panels (6.4mm laminated glass), aperture cut into previous exhibition purpose built wall onto gallery radiator, EPDM roofing washers, concrete screws, 303 × 211.5 × 1.5 cm

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Hot seeing/Spot blind Buddha, 2026 (detail)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, A case of seeing and being seen, 2026, gallery facade window panel (6.4mm laminated glass) fitted into aperture in previous exhibition purpose built wall onto original gallery windows over looking Cambridge Heath Road, EPDM roofing washers, concrete screws, 42 × 145 × 0.5 cm

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, A case of seeing and being seen, 2026 (alternative view)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, A case of seeing and being seen, 2026 (detail)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, A case of seeing and being seen, 2026 (detail)

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Are you seeing anyone, 2026, Magazine cut out for photographic collages, masking tape, pinspot lamp endfit to gallery lighting 66 × 23 × 140 cm

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Beatriz Olabarrieta, Next of kin, Rose Easton, London, 10 January – 2 February 2026

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