Sid Motion Gallery to Close After Ten Years in London

Sid Motion Gallery will close this autumn after ten years in London, with its founder, Sidonie Motion, saying the business is no longer in the financial position to provide its artists with the level of support it wants.

The South Bermondsey gallery will stage its final exhibition, That Which Appears, from 18 September to 31 October. It will be the 85th exhibition since Motion opened the gallery in 2016.

“As I look ahead to the future, I can see that the gallery is not in the financial position to fully honour the extraordinary potential of each of my artists,” Motion said in a statement announcing the closure.

Motion said she had decided to close rather than scale back the gallery’s programme. “We are stopping while we are ahead, while my artists are properly serviced and the quality of the programme remains high,” she said.

Motion, the daughter of former Financial Times arts editor Jan Dalley and former poet laureate Andrew Motion, opened the gallery in a former betting shop in King’s Cross in June 2016, before relocating it three years later to the Penarth Centre in South Bermondsey, an industrial complex housing more than 50 artists’ studios.

In South Bermondsey, the gallery continued its focus on emerging and mid-career artists, including through an annual graduate prize run in collaboration with Central Saint Martins. It also hosted tours for collectors and patron groups that took in nearby cultural institutions and commercial spaces.

Motion established the South Bermondsey Art Trail after moving to the area, connecting studios, exhibitions and other creative spaces across the neighbourhood. This year’s edition, on 4 and 5 September, is expected to involve around 70 artists.

Motion was also a co-founder of London Gallery Weekend, established in 2021 to bring together galleries across the capital. She remains on its steering committee, alongside representatives from galleries including White Cube, Lisson, Victoria Miro, Maureen Paley and Hauser & Wirth. Companies House records show that Motion has been a director of London Gallery Weekend CIC since its incorporation in February 2021.

Her involvement in South London’s wider art infrastructure also includes Southwark Park Galleries. Motion has been a director of Bermondsey Artists’ Group, the charitable organisation behind the gallery, since 2023.

Artists shown by Sid Motion have gone on to enter institutional collections. James Lomax, whose solo exhibition The Black Paintings is currently on view at the gallery, is represented in the Government Art Collection.

The gallery will close following That Which Appears, co-curated by Motion with artists Olivia Bax and James Fisher. The exhibition will be restaged at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield in April 2028, accompanied by a publication.