Verisimilitude

Events

Veris x hardcopy*

All our events are free and open to all please book your tickets through the links helow

Exhibition Opening: Thursday 17th September 5pm-7pm

Friday 25th September:
Artist Mixer Event 12:30pm-3pm, Full event details are on the link below



Saturday 3rd October:
10-11am: Chew the cud: The Auxiliary
11:45-1pm Veris Artists in Conversation with George Vasey: Centre Square 2
1:30-2:30pm Island Of neighbours: The Auxiliary
2.45 - 3.45pm Susan Jones

Sunday 4th October
10:30-11.30am: Mechanisms for artistic development: Centre Square 2
11.45 - 12.45pm: Hardcopy: Artists & Print: Centre Square 2
1.15 - 2.15pm: Relationships beyond the studio: Centre Square 2
2.30-3.30pm: SAWDUST: Mechanisms for supporting culture: Centre Square 2

Verisimilitude has joined forces with Hardcopy* to present a group show of printmakers from the region and beyond. Printmaking and the creation of multiples is an integral part of many artists practice allowing them to explore ideas, textures and layers. Printmaking is an affordable entry point into collecting an artist's work. Please ask a member of the team if you wish to enquire about prices and availability.

Selected hardcopy* artist collaborators / instagram handles

James Clarkson @jamesklclarkson
Charlotte Dawson @charlottedawsonart
Rachel Deakin @racheldeakin_
Erris Huigens (Deconstructie) @deconstructie
Will Hughes @will_hughes_art_
Penny Payne @payne.penelope

Verisimilitude artists:

Luke Beach @lukebeachartist
Kitty McKay @kittmck
Liz Wilson @lizwilson_



hardcopy* is a publisher and production platform based in Newcastle upon Tyne (UK) and run by artist Nick Kennedy. Operating as an open space for research, dialogue, and experimentation, hardcopy* explores digital cultures and contemporary modes of production.

hardcopy* works collaboratively with artists to realise new projects, from collectible limited-edition artworks to ambitious, large-scale public installations. The project is centered on critical artist development, all sales directly support contributing practitioners and fund future publishing. Driven by a mission to support and empower the North East’s creative community, hardcopy* pairs deep regional roots with an expanding roster of global collaborators, fostering meaningful artistic dialogues both at home and internationally.

@hardcopyshop
www.hardcopyshop.com

Nick Kennedy
Nick Kennedy (b. Middlesbrough in 1983) is an artist, curator and creative producer who lives and works in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He received a BA (hons) in Fine Art at Newcastle University in 2007. He has exhibited widely in the UK and Europe, with forthcoming exhibitions including Trinity Bouy Wharf Drawing Prize Shortlist, London (UK) in 2026/27 and Drawing on the Periphery, Pictura (NL) in 2027.

In 2014 he co-curated the exhibition Chance Finds Us at MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art and produced the publication which accompanied the exhibition. In 2021 his work was included in the book Vitamin D3, Today's Best In Contemporary Drawing, published by Phaidon. In 2024 he initiated hardcopy* a publishing platform for limited edition artist prints, books and multiples. His work is held in public and private collections, including The Print Studio Archive, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

@studionickkennedy
www.nickkennedy.info

Exhibition Opening: Thu 17th September 5pm-7pm ALL WELCOME

Exhibition Opening Dates:
(Open 10am-4pm, Sundays 12pm-4pm)
Fri 18th September - Sun 20th September
Thu 24th September - Sun 27th September
Tue 29th September - Sun 4th October
Sat 10th October & Sun 11th October

Verisimilitude brings together works by Luke Beech, Garth Gratrix, Kitty McKay and Liz Wilson. Through the use of verisimilitude, ‘the appearance of being true or real’ the artists present not just object realities but consider material deception and external perceptions; all the while questioning how and why we build authenticity. The exhibition takes us on a journey of encounters using the vernacular of contemporary living. Travel, water and play are all recurring motifs.

Each artist represented is on an artistic path ranging from emerging to visible. By bringing together artists at different stages of career, the exhibition foregrounds the evolving nature of contemporary sculpture in the Uk, highlighting the importance of sustained support throughout every stage of artistic growth.

Verisimilitude is curated by Penny Payne and Will Hughes

Luke Beech

@lukebeechartist
www.lukebeechartist.com

Luke Beech is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work draws on the rituals and pressures of masculinity, treating inherited social forms as structures that can be bent, refigured and re-staged.

Across sculpture, performance, video and editioned works, he develops an evolving language that returns to and extends earlier forms.

His practice returns to charged materials and motifs - fishing imagery, pool chalk, hay nets, restling bodies, furniture and discarded prints - treating them as social codes to be handled, bent and re-scored. Sport and outdoor pursuits recur as stages where tenderness and violence sit side by side. From a queer position both inside and adjacent to masculinity, Beech isolates its gestures and rituals, allowing shifts in posture and balance to expose what they conceal.

Recent works include Red Herring, a screenprinted edition on seaweed paper that reframes a trophy catch as a study in performance and desire, and Trial Proof, a suspended hay net filled with rejected prints that functions as a soft archive of labour and persistence. Earlier projects such as Winner

Garth Gratrix

@garthgratrix
garthgratrix.com

Garth Gratrix is a contemporary artist based in the North of England whose practice explores queerness, space and materials; using self-imposed rules within a not-so-straight-line where the formal and frolicsome meet.

Their work is held in permanent collections including the V&A, Contemporary Art Society and Grundy Art Gallery, and they have exhibited internationally and alongside artists inc. Derek Jarman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, David Hockney, Helen Cammock, Rene Matic, and Lubaina Himid.

They have guest curated a number of large scale exhibitions including WINK WINK, Whitaker Museum (2023) and UK New Artist of the Year £10k Art Prize, Saatchi Gallery (2019-2024)

Alongside their artistic work, they are Founder and Director of Abingdon Studios, an artist-led organisation in Blackpool -supporting production, commissioning and cultural infrastructure for early and mid-career artists.

Kitty McKay

@kittmck
kittymckay.co.uk

Kitty McKay is an artist and researcher eternally preoccupied with the ways in which public space is made and unmade. Working across installation, moving-image, sculpture, sound, collage and writing, their approach to practice is informed by feminist, queer and crip frameworks for understanding, and overcoming, the ways power constructs place. Their installations seek to evoke the errant, dissonant and unauthorised socialites and practices that happen in urban space through the dislocation of materials that comprise and enforce spatial hegemony.

Kitty co-runs the socially engaged walking project, Incursions, which uses group walking to explore relationships between space, place and people. They also contribute to the More Than Meanwhile Spaces working group as a researcher, exploring longer-term futures for artist-led initiatives in the North East.

Liz Wilson

@_liz_wilson_
www.lizwilson.work

Working across the boundaries of print, moving image, sound and sculpture, Wilson’s practice explores the stretch of time between the industrial and post industrial - in particular the beginning of automation and how this is altering our relationships with technology. Using site visits as a catalyst to research, write and produce works, she is fascinated by the human machine relationship of both ‘conductor’ and ‘orchestra’ and how these performative roles manifest themselves within both our natural and fabricated environments.

Wilson works closely with manufacturing communities, developing projects that respond to specific industries, processes and places. Over the past eight years, she has collaborated with organisations including Hitachi Rail Ltd, Chatham Dockyard Ropery, Spiroflow, CNC Robotics and Turner Works Architects. Working across printmaking, moving image, sound and sculpture, she combines these material processes to create large-scale immersive installations and curatorial interventions, often situated within the public realm.

We would like to thank our funders and supporters who without which we could not have brought this exhibition and events schedule together.

Penny Payne is an independent curator who has worked for Middlesbrough Art Week to deliver the North East Open Call since 2023. Payne has her own artistic practice rooted in the exploration of social record. She primarily explores female narratives, particularly overlooked and unrecorded histories. From her studio in Cullercoats, North Tyneside Payne creates sculptural pieces, site specific installations and performative moments that draw on archival research.
Her work Canon produced as part of her Art In Manufacturing Residency had its debut at The Festival of Making, Blackburn and Haworth Art Gallery in July/ August 2026
@payne.penelope www.penelopepayne.co.uk

Will Hughes is a visual artist and co-founder of SAWDUST. A graduate of Bath Spa University and the BxNU Institute, concepts of aspiration, queerness and glamour are central themes within their practice. Which often takes form in sculpture, print and installation. Curatorially they are interested in ways of supporting early and mid career artistic voices and building strong networks.
In 2025 they were named Tees valley Artist of the year which represented a significant investment in their practice, and also cofounded SAWDUST WORKSHOP CIC A workshop for artists, a lab for reimagining our streets and a place where ideas get built.
@will_hughes_art www.willhughesartist.com