MAKEUP maestro Isamaya Ffrench has been busy. Her latest entrepreneurial endeavour? A curated concept store and gallery ‘dedicated to a new era of design’.
Christened Studio Iron, the platform launched earlier this month, named after the medieval Germanic meaning of Isamaya: ‘iron-strength’. Conceived as a platform for ‘collapsing and reconfiguring the hierarchies traditionally imposed between art, design and object’, it strives to uphold work that is ‘thoughtful, intentional and materially honest’.
In pursuit of this, Ffrench and Studio Iron are staging an eponymous group exhibition at London’s Saatchi Yates gallery from 30 April to 7 June 2026.
Isamaya Ffrench. Photograph: Hugo Yangüela
Spanning design, installation, sculpture and painting, the exhibition encompasses works that ‘occupy an unstable territory between function and non-function, utility and image, object and artwork.’
True to Studio Iron’s name and nature, steel and iron dominate throughout, with a subdued silver and stark white colour scheme forming a bleak post-industrial landscape of furniture, structures and fine art.
Notable works on display include a film installation by Marina Abramović, a heavy wall-mounted steel work by Jannis Kounellis, industrial benches by Anne Imhof and an unconventional bumper-sticker chair sculpture by Jordan Wolfson.
Also featured are thought-provoking works by Paul McCarthy, Nico Vascellari, Hannah Levy, Kelly Wearstler, Marco Panconesi, Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Peter John and Anselm Kiefer. Each engages with themes of ‘tension, unease, alienation and the increasingly psychological conditions of contemporary life’, collectively tapping into an austere and post-industrial vision of the present, chosen by Studio Iron as its opening statement.
Step into Studio Iron’s world and inspect the works up close at Saatchi Yates’ 14 Bury Street location from 30 April to 7 June. You’ll be left with a newfound appreciation for Iron’s artistic versatility.
by Ella O’Gorman