Headcanon brings together four artists who approach repetition as a method of revision. Borrowed from fan culture, the term "headcanon" describes a personal version of a story, one that diverges from its official narrative. The exhibition uses this idea as a framework to explore how repeated gestures, processes, and images allow for small shifts to emerge through sustained attention.

Anais Comer approaches repetition through the language of doodling. Her work builds through small, repeated marks borrowed from idle drawings made in notebooks or margins. By treating these gestures as a site of careful attention, Comer reveals the labour and care embedded within these seemingly throwaway moments.

Interested in fan culture, Esther Gamsu recent works begin with doll-like objects that she repeatedly remakes at increasing scales. Through repetition and enlargement, Gamsu explores how a familiar object can become increasingly strange when removed from its original reference.

In Anna Pederson's practice, images move through stages of digital compression and abstraction before being translated into bead embroidery. This process allows for the image to move off the screen and into a physical, manual space, no longer purely digital but materially present.

For Zachary Merle, repetition is a way of revisiting memory. Beginning with fragments of archival family photographs, Merle transfers and reworks the image through a pigment transfer process. In repeatedly handling an image it slowly degrades, exposing the instability of memory rather than preserving it.

The works in Headcanon present repetition as both rhythmic and destabilising. Working across distinct mediums, the group of artists demonstrate how repetition can transform images and meaning in radically different ways. Each material introduces its own pace, resistance, and form of labour. Rather than reinforcing a stable image or meaning, these variations reveal the limits of sameness and allow for images and objects to drift away from their original forms.

Anais Comer (b.1996, London) lives and works in London. She studied BA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and participated in the Associate Studio Programme developed between Central Saint Martins and ACME (2019–2021). Selected recent group exhibitions include: Vow, 20 Albert Road, Glasgow (2026); Running Through London, Twilight Contemporary, London (2025); Great Expectations, General Assembly, London (2024); The Improbable Truth, Kupfer Projects, London (2023); Ghost Show, Unit AG.1, Copeland Park, London (2022); Ai Mi Tagai, White Conduit Projects, London (2022); Dreamlands Part II, OHSH Projects, London (2021); invisible city, UK Mexican Arts Society, London (2021); Sounding Off 2.0, VITRINE (Online) (2021). Residencies include Bad Art Presents Residency, Berlin (2018); RAVARES, Rava, Croatia (2017), and The Old Courts, Wigan (2017).Her work has been published in Pleasant Place, Trebuchet and FAD Magazine.

Esther Gamsu (b. 1995, Sheffield) lives and works in London. She recently graduated from the Royal Academy Schools postgraduate programme (2022–2025) and previously studied Sculpture & Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art. She recently had her first solo exhibition, Medium, David Dale, Glasgow (2025). Selected group exhibitions include: Buffet D’Art, Ambika P3, London (2026); Slow Manifesto, A Plus A Gallery, Venice (2025); i licked it so it’s mine, Votive Gallery, Edinburgh (2025) and RSA New Contemporaries, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2019). She has created public artworks for St James Church Picadilly, London; Newbridge Project, Newcastle; Govan Cross Shopping Centre, Glasgow; and Platform, Glasgow. Awards include the Richard Ford Award (2023), Ivor Rey Award (2024), and the Royal Academy Schools Dissertation Award, Lady Selina Cheneviere Travel Award, and Liberty London Design Prize (all 2025). Her work has been published in The Skinny, WRPD Magazine, Apollo Magazine and Flash Art.

Anna Pederson (b.1996, Saint Paul, MN) lives and works in New York. Pederson holds a BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design and has a background in commercial textile and apparel design. Recent exhibitions include N24B at Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York (2024); Life on All Fours, Window on Franklin, New York (2024) and Secrets to Graceful Living, Alyssa Davis Gallery, hosted by Artxnyc, New York (2024). Her work has appeared in publications including Office Magazine and Columbia University’s MODA Critical Review.

Zachary Merle (b.1997, Hertfordshire, UK) lives and works in London. He completed his BA in Graphic Design at Bath Spa University (2021), followed by an artist residency at Emerge, Bath (2021–2023). Solo exhibitions include Palmer Gallery, (online 2026). Selected group exhibitions include All That's Left Behind, The Florence Trust, London (2026); Paradoxical Field: Prelude I, Purist Gallery, London (2025); Only Shallow, Lee Scully x TwoPlusTwo, London (2025); Full Disclosure, D Contemporary, London (2025); In The Corner Of My Eye, Fresh Salad x Koppel Collective, London (2024). His work is featured in Artists, a publication by Brynley Odu Davies in collaboration with Guts Gallery.

Headcanon

16 aPRIL - 23 May, 2026Anaïs Comer Esther Gamsu Anna PedersonZachary Merle

16 aPRIL - 23 May, 2026

Anaïs Comer
Esther Gamsu
Anna Pederson
Zachary Merle