Damien Flood
Veil
29 October - 4 December 2026
Green On Red Gallery is proud to announce Veil, a solo exhibition of Damien Flood’s new oil paintings and ceramics following quickly on the heels of his A Place to Disappear solo show in Brigitte Mulholland, Paris, in September 2026.
Veil emerges out of this new body of work inspired by his ongoing fascination with Père Lachaise Cemetery, Boulevard de Ménilmontant, 11th Arrondisement, one of Europe’s most storied necropolises. Rather than offering literal depictions of the site, the exhibition looks at the cemetery as a place of contemplation - its sedimented histories, weathered monuments and organic encroachments - reflecting and re-interpreting ideas into richly layered surfaces that foreground the material presence of oil paint.
Damien Flood Plat 2026 Oil on canvas, cold wax, herbs, pencil and artist’s linen frame 52 x 42 cm
Veil looks at the cemetery as a place of contemplation - its sedimented histories, weathered monuments and organic encroachments - reflecting and re-interpreting ideas into richly layered surfaces that foreground the material presence of oil paint. The cemetery becomes a generative environment; a place where stone erodes, moss spreads and inscriptions dissolve into texture.
Complementing the oil paintings is a series of black ceramic figures on cast, de-embossed concrete columns embossed with a leafy patina derived from a Victorian wallpaper and inspired by the mournful muses in the 11th.
Damien Flood Mournful Muse Seated in Grief 2026 Single-edition acrylic-coated ceramic sculpture on cast de-embossed concrete pedestal 135 x 18 x 18 cm
Damien Flood Mournful Muse with Burial Wreaths 2026 Single-edition acrylic-coated ceramic sculpture on cast de-embossed concrete pedestal 131 x 18 x 18 cm
At the heart of the exhibition is an emphasis on experiencing painting as an object rather than simply seeing it as an image. Flood highlights its tactile qualities. Canvases, jute and linen are draped to conceal the painting beneath. The brushstrokes can be more relief formations, while areas of abrasion lay bare earlier choices, revealing the painting’s layered history as an active and constantly evolving process; a dynamic interplay between construction and erosion that mirrors the cycles of preservation 0and decay observable among the tombs and monuments of the cemetery.
In a practice that continues to confront difficult, even unanswerable questions, the viewer is never left alone. The deft touches in Potager ( 2026 ), for example, keep the viewer entranced and swimming in this expansive world full of space and life and detail. Lush azure or cerulean - as if straight from the tube - sits alongside a forest-green cluster, highlit with exuberant, pure mustard-yellow, rising off the pale canvas support. These paintings are teeming with life, in as much as they face and declare death and endings. It is a balance sumptuously struck in Veil, continuing the theme of the vanitas, going back through A Place to Disappear, to Tilt in the RHA ( 2021 ) and Counter Earth ( 2010 ) in Green On Red Gallery, Lombard Street East.
Damien Flood Potager 2026 Oil, herbs and cold wax on canvas with artist’s linen frame 164 x 134 cm
“When I see a sunflower drooping, I can droop with it... and I draw it, and feel it until its death.”
Flood's new paintings and ceramics continue to explore meaning in and through the material.
That material is predominantly oil paint on canvas, where even the canvas - and now, too, the linen frame - have become active usurpers or agents.
Damien Flood Drifting Tree, Winter Tree, Tree Stack 2026 Oil on canvas with artist’s linen frame 61.5 x 41.5 cm
Come visit the Gallery for free at 10am - 6pm, Monday to Friday