Lehmann Maupin is pleased to present Conduits, Anna Freeman Bentley’s inaugural exhibition with the gallery in London. Opening on June 4, 2026, Conduits will feature a suite of new and recent paintings by Freeman Bentley, which explore the idea of veils and coverings as conduits to meaning. The exhibition coincides with London Gallery Weekend, taking place from June 5–7, 2026.
At the heart of Freeman Bentley’s practice is a psychogeographic exploration of the built environment—from baroque interiors and historic buildings to shops, film sets, and industrial sites. Her paintings examine how spaces are shaped by function, class, aspiration, and time; often touching on themes like gentrification, decay, and renewal. However, her paintings don’t just depict spaces—they probe what spaces mean, how they’re used, and what they reveal about human presence, even when no figures appear. Empty rooms in Freeman Bentley’s work are never neutral—they feel charged, suggesting past activity or unseen narratives.
The works in Conduits are taken from Freeman Bentley’s ongoing series Complete Reality, an expansive body of work exploring reality, artifice and layers of meaning in staged and assembled environments. Focusing on interior spaces within the confines of a single geographic location, the paintings in this show display multiple depictions of drapery, veils and coverings. Featuring scenes that suggest a focal point just beyond view, the paintings probe the delicate tension between the real and the artificial, the enduring and the fleeting. In doing so, they question the divide between images captured through the lens and those constructed through painting.
Art Historian, Dr. Joost Joustra writes: ‘We perceive these spaces reflected in mirrors, through half-drawn curtains, standing in doorways and on thresholds. There is something voyeuristic about Freeman Bentley’s scenes, sometimes unsettling…. What went on in these rooms? There seem to be traces of human existence in the materiality of the furnishings: thick carpets; velour, velvet, and voile. Fabrics become bearers of lives lived. They behave as instruments of revelation, curtains that can both conceal and uncover. The imagination runs wild, bringing to life the inhabitants of these spaces, through their material vestiges instead of the rendered likenesses of human beings. Freeman Bentley paints “still lifes” - emphatically so.’ On the occasion of the exhibition, Joustra will write a short accompanying text.
In one of the newest works, Directing light (2026), not only are we presented with a space covered from floor to ceiling in curtains and drapery but also reflected in the mirror is a headless mannequin dressed in fabrics and diaphanous headwear. The materiality of the paint mimics some of the attributes of the textiles, with visually complex layers of colour hinting at the suggested overlapping meanings. The show’s title, Conduits, reminds us how paint and image can collapse into each other to act as a channel for multiple interpretations of the work to emerge. The curtain motif presents ideas of theatre and staging, that of division, the breaking down of barriers as well as the possibility of drama unfolding. In Conduits, Freeman Bentley uses painting to turn interiors into complex psychological and cultural landscapes—spaces where architecture, narrative, and perception intersect.
About the Artist
Anna Freeman Bentley’s practice explores the uncanny within architectural spaces, depicting interiors imbued with a heightened emotional or psychological intensity. The absence of figures enables Freeman Bentley to imply narrative, creating worlds within worlds that contain subtle signifiers revealing the artifice and complex dynamics of manmade environments.
Anna Freeman Bentley (b. 1982, London, UK) received her BA from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2004 and her MA from the Royal College of Art in London in 2010. In 2019 she participated in the artist residency at Palazzo Monti, Brescia and in 2012 the Artist in Restaurant residency at Michelin-starred restaurant Pied a Terre in London. Her work was included in the Prague Biennale 5 2011 and Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2009. Selected exhibitions include: Anat Ebgi, LA, USA; Monica De Cardenas, Zuoz, CH; Massimo de Carlo Piece Unique, Paris, FR; Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam, NL; Lyndsey Ingram, London, UK; Frestonian Gallery, London, UK; Space K, Seoul, KR; and DENK Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Her works are included in the Tia Collection, Santa Fe; Museum X, Beijing; Hotel Crillon, Paris; Hogan Lovells, London; and the Ahmanson Collection, Irvine. A recent catalogue titled Complete Reality with essays by Jennifer Higgie and Kathryn Lloyd and an interview with Elisabetta Fabrizi was published in January 2025 by Anomie Publishing.
Freeman Bentley lives and works in London, UK.
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