BIO
Othello De'Souza-Hartley is a London-based interdisciplinary artist working across photography, moving image, painting, drawing, and performance. The human body sits at the core of his practice, as a direct subject, as a metaphor, and a surface that holds memory. Applying minimal gestures to maximum effect, his work finds meaning within shadows and imperfection.
His current research focuses on architecture and the human body, exploring how both surfaces tell stories. He approaches the body and architecture as parallel texts, tracing the marks that time, experience, and resilience leave behind. Through intuitive mark-making, varied textures, and found objects, he meditates on the narratives etched into our skin and surroundings, honouring the resilience, beauty, and quiet complexity embedded within us and our environments.
Rooted in a fascination with light and darkness, his practice draws on the subjective gaze of classical painting, notions of non-duality in Eastern philosophy, the geometry of modern architecture, and the spontaneity of experimental music and contemporary dance. De'Souza-Hartley's practice is not confined by medium or genre.
His Masculinity project, spanning photography and film, received extensive press coverage and was nominated for Peer to Peer, a curated snapshot of contemporary photography in the UK and China (2019). His work is held in private and public collections and has been widely exhibited in the UK and internationally. Recent highlights include Iconophosis, a group exhibition at Lewisham Art House, which he both curated and participated in.
He holds an MA in Fine Art from Camberwell College of Arts and has studied at Central Saint Martins and the Royal Drawing School, London.
CV
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 Bomb Factory, London (UK) ‘9005’
2022 Materia Gallery, Rome (Italy) | ‘Intimations’
2020 Koppel Project Exchange, London (UK) | ‘Catalogue of Emotions’
2018 Campo XXV Aprile (Rome Art Week), Rome (Italy) | ‘Own Narrative’
2018 Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery, London(UK) | ‘I AM’
2011 The Underground Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Masculinity’
2006 Platform for Art at Westminster Station, London (UK) | ‘Connected’
2005 Camden Arts Centre, London (UK) | ‘Black in Northwest’
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026 The Balsford Gallery, London (UK) ‘Ritual’
2026 Lewisham Art House, London (UK) ‘Iconophosis’
2025 Anticlone Gallery at Ocho Cotsworld (UK)
2024 Whitstable Art Festival, Kent (UK) | ‘A New Era of Creativity’
2024 Casildart, London (UK) | ‘Black British Art, The Future is Now Part II, Re/form-ation’
2022 International Exchange Project, Seoul (Korea) |’ Love Your Depot’
2022 Anticlone Gallery at William Blake House, London (UK) | ‘The Diaspora’
2022 Shapero Rare Books, London (UK) | ‘In Conversation Now’
2022 Impressions Gallery, Bradford (UK) | ‘Care|Contagion|Community – Self & Other’
2021 Centraal Museum, Amsterdam (Netherlands) | ‘Voices of Fashion. Black Culture, Beauty and Styles’
2021 Autograph, London (UK) | ‘Care|Contagion|Community - Self & Other’
2019 Shanghai Centre of Photography, Shanghai (China) | 2019 Photo Fair Shanghai ‘Peer to Peer’ (China)
2019 Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool (UK) | ‘Peer to Peer’
2018 Outside The Zone Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Before the Last Moment’
2016 Sulger-Buel Lovell Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Rites of Passage
2012 The Photographers’ Gallery, London (UK) | ‘The World in London’
2012 Zabludowicz Collection, London (UK) | ‘Centrefold 8: The Circle of Manias’
2007 National Portrait Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Four Corners’
PERFORMANCE
2025 Loop Festival, Bankside Gallery, London (UK) | Collaboration with Artist Fungai Marima
2024 National Maritime Museum, London (UK) | ‘WATER DOESN’T STOP FLOWING’
2023 Mandrake Hotel/Anticlone Gallery, London (UK) | ‘What is the Reflection you Want to Get Back’
COMMISSIONS
2020 Autograph, London (UK) | ‘Care|Contagion|Community - Self & Other’
2015 The Museum of Liverpool, Liverpool (UK) | ‘L8’
2010 The Photographers’ Gallery, London (UK) | ‘The World in London’
2008 The Photographers’ Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Stylees’
2007 National Portrait Gallery, London (UK) | ‘Four Corners’
2006 Platform for Art, London (UK) |’ Connected’
RESIDENCIES
2017 Ugandan Arts Trust, Kampala (Uganda)
2005 Camden Arts Centre, London (UK)