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Canvas Alchemy at Victoria Miro: “Alchemies” Featuring May Cockcroft, Nour Malas, and Sarah Martin-Nuss

Canvas Alchemy at Victoria Miro: “Alchemies” Featuring May Cockcroft, Nour Malas, and Sarah Martin-Nuss

Bringing together the work of three emerging women abstract painters—May Cockcroft, Nour Malas, and Sarah Martin-Nuss—Alchemies at Victoria Miro, one of London’s cornerstone gallery spaces, redefines matter’s impulse toward metamorphosis through the vernacular of contemporary painting. Running from 13 November 2026 to 23 January 2027, the exhibition interrogates the phase shifts of material, color, and consciousness.

The ancient practice of alchemy—which posits the transformation of natural matter through human intervention—has long operated in tandem with artistic creation. Alchemies draws its vitality from this very intersection. Hailing from distinct disciplines and geographies, the three artists treat the canvas not merely as a passive surface, but as an active site of transformation where material, perception, and stratification coalesce.

May Cockcroft: Excavating Memory in the Rugged Texture of the Cornwall Coast

The ancient geology and tempestuous coastline of Cornwall serve as the primary source for the raw textures found in the work of London-based painter May Cockcroft. Refusing to confine herself to paint alone, Cockcroft approaches the canvas with a discipline akin to an architectural construction site.

Incorporating plaster, chalk, marble dust, and charcoal, she builds up dense strata before scraping back into the surface to expose underlying layers. This rhythm of concealment and revelation mirrors the slow, geological passage of time; the cracks and fissures across the surface evoke less a literal landscape than a spatial memory formed by sedimented time.

About the Artist: Born in 2002, May Cockcroft earned her BA from Edinburgh College of Art in 2024 and completed her MA at the Royal College of Art in 2026. She has garnered attention through group exhibitions across London and Edinburgh at venues including The Koppel Project, Talbot Rice Gallery, and The Hockney Gallery.

Nour Malas: Identity and Sanctuary Emerging from a Vortex of Color

New York-based Syrian-Canadian artist Nour Malas infuses the exhibition with the emotional weight of personal and collective history. In Malas’s paintings, narratives of past and present overlap and dissolve into one another.

Employing an intuitive, expressive brushwork that generates turbulent layers of color, her works place the viewer at the center of a cathartic experience. Deep within dense chromatic vortices, faint, almost imperceptible figures materialize only to dissolve once more. These abstract surfaces function as internal sanctuaries built around themes of belonging, the ruptures of memory, and the enduring human search for a safe haven.

About the Artist: Born in 1995, Nour Malas completed her undergraduate studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, before earning an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has recently been exhibited in New York, Chicago, and Dubai at galleries including Patron Gallery, Carbon 12, and Sean Kelly Gallery.

Sarah Martin-Nuss: Tides of Sound, Light, and Nature

New York-based interdisciplinary artist Sarah Martin-Nuss—whose practice spans painting, performance, and sound—examines concepts of fluidity and transformation through the lens of biological systems and posthumanist philosophy.

Working on multiple canvases simultaneously, Martin-Nuss shifts layers of oil paint and pastel across the surface with tidal momentum. Colors swell into density before receding like a sound wave. On these dynamic surfaces devoid of a fixed viewpoint, light dissolves form, pulling the viewer into a visual frequency. The rhythms of her work on sound and breath with the Meredith Monk Ensemble register directly within the choreography of her brushstrokes.

About the Artist: Born in 1992, Sarah Martin-Nuss holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute. In addition to studies in Cannes and at SVA New York, she has participated in exhibitions at prestigious venues including Pace Gallery (Los Angeles) and Rachel Uffner Gallery (New York). Her work is included in major institutional collections, such as the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art.

Visitor Information

For those wishing to witness the alchemical transformation of material and engage closely with the abstract expressions of these three emerging painters: