July 2026Exhibition

Urban Echoes

For three weeks in July 2026, Paul’s independent exhibition filled 6,000 square feet of the Bomb Factory Art Foundation on Marylebone Road, designed, built and run by his own team.

4 min read

A raw concrete-beamed hall with white walls, where bright city paintings hang on steel frames and a white bench sits on the grey floor. — The main hall at the Bomb Factory Art Foundation

Firstly I want to say thank you to all my collectors, old and new, for supporting me on my journey, and to all the people who took the time to come and see my show. It was awesome to see so many people enjoying my work.

Paul Kenton

Paul Kenton’s independent exhibition Urban Echoes took place on Marylebone Road, London, in July 2026, at the Bomb Factory Art Foundation: 6,000 square feet of floor space, and a great deal of wall.

The exhibition ran for three weeks and had a wonderful reception, from Paul’s private collectors on the opening night and from the public in the weeks after. It was equally wonderful to find homes for a number of large-scale studio works, and many smaller originals.

The Urban Echoes window on Marylebone Road: the show’s name in white lettering over a large painting of a London street — The opening night and the weeks that followed at the Bomb Factory Art Foundation.

To witness first hand the moment of connection as people come into contact with the work is a truly wonderful thing to experience, and it is the reason why we ran an exhibition of this scale.

Paul Kenton

Paul took this monumental challenge in his stride, as an opportunity to celebrate six years of artistic development and to push his own boundaries: as a creative, and as an artist running his own business, forging his own brand and curating his exhibition outside gallery control.

Carving his own path through the contemporary art world, this chapter signified autonomy, and a true evolution into a contemporary heavyweight rather than being boxed into the status quo.

A sunlit shopfront on Marylebone Road, its large window lettered Urban Echoes next to a bright city painting. — The shopfront on Marylebone Road

Two paintings hang on a steel frame beside a rough concrete column: a misty Westminster riverside scene above a glowing orange sunset over water. — Steel hanging frames, designed and made by the team

Small framed works cover a white wall, while a steel frame in the centre holds a larger picture of bright blue and red shapes in a pale frame.

A long concrete-floored room with black-and-white city drawings in black frames lining the left wall and a bright city painting at the far end. — The ink on paper collection

A huge rainy-night street painting, with a yellow taxi and dark umbrellas, hangs on black drapes beside a small easel and a smaller canvas. — The back room, darker and quieter

The exhibition brought together Paul’s large-scale museum-grade works, his artisan ink on Indian paper collection, plein air paintings from his many international travels and, for the first time, an immersive installation: an interactive, multi-sensory design to bring the subject at its centre to light.

This was the opportunity to really design an exhibition that captivated my imagination, to really think about the problems and find solutions. The space was perfect for experimenting, and we took so many lessons away from what we achieved.

Paul Kenton

Having control of the design allowed a true expression of how Paul imagined his exhibition. The hang blended contemporary arrangement with the grand exhibitions of the past: the French Royal Academy’s Salon, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London, and the Salon des Refusés of 1863.

The Salon des Refusés was one of the catalysts of Impressionism. Many of the early Impressionists, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne among them, were repeatedly rejected from the Paris Salon by the conservative establishment. Paul, who was himself turned down by art school as a student, felt a particular kinship with the movement he still draws on today, and wanted to express it.

The busy, chaotic but magnificent walls were an ode to the past, set against sleek, minimal, contemporary areas of the room given over to Paul’s abstract impressionism on large-scale canvas and aluminium.

A crowded salon-style wall of dozens of black-framed city pictures, mostly black-and-white, with a few colour paintings, under a concrete ceiling. — The salon wall, after the Salon des Refusés

Paul Kenton in a cap and navy T-shirt in the main hall of Urban Echoes, walls of framed paintings behind him — Paul’s own tour of the show, filmed during the run.

Organising the logistics was a project in itself. Two moving vans carried the paintings and materials from North Devon to London, arriving in the dead of night at around 2am. The work was unloaded, and the two-and-a-half-day set-up began.

Paul Kenton sits on the tail lift of a van stacked high with blue-wrapped paintings, raising a mug in one hand and a fist in the other. — Paul with the work from North Devon

A white wall covered in paper outlines of paintings, each labelled with a code such as PK-CE26, with a teal square and a folding stepladder in front. — Paper templates marking where each painting would hang

Months before, at HQ, the team planned the whole show on a 1:40 scale model of the gallery, and designed hanging systems to hold artworks in the windows and around the space.

Paul Kenton in a paint-spattered studio coat behind a white scale model of the exhibition, with tiny paintings on its walls — In the studio, Paul shows the 1:40 model of the show, then the full-size hanging frame it was planned around.

Overhead view of the white model gallery: two red figures, black wire stands, and tiny paintings on the floor, with the dark model walls around it. — The 1:40 scale model used to plan the hang

Elevated view across the model’s rooms, with tiny paintings scattered over the white floor, black wire stands by glowing pillars and one red figure at right.

Angled close view of the model floor, with tiny city paintings spread around black wire stands and a glowing white pillar.

Tiny paintings lie scattered across the white model floor beside glowing pillars and black wire stands, under warm, low light.

Two red model figures stand on the white floor among tiny paintings, beside a glowing pillar and a black wire stand. — Red figures show the scale against tiny paintings

Looking down a model gallery corridor past a black wire railing and glowing white pillars, with tiny paintings lying on the floor beyond.

Seen through a model doorway, two red figures stand inside a black wire frame, with a white gallery room and dark opening beyond.

Through a window cut in a model wall, black wire stands and tiny paintings on the white floor sit in soft light beside glowing pillars.

Two tiny paintings lean against a cream model wall, orange and purple, with blurred black wire stands and a glowing pillar behind.

Two red model figures stand on the white floor beside a black wire stand, with a blurred painting in the background.

Tiny paintings lie across the warm-lit model floor, with black wire stands and glowing pillars on either side.

Close view of a white model gallery, with two tiny paintings on black wire stands beside glowing pillars and two red figures in the foreground.

Cardboard boxes full of galvanised steel tube fittings beside a length of scaffold tube on a concrete floor — Boxes of steel fittings for the free-standing hanging frames, made at HQ.

Practically every element was designed and made in house by the team, from the artworks to the frames, the hanging systems, the audio soundscapes, the online payment systems and the immersive installation. Everyone had a role to play, and had to find their own solutions to the challenges we faced.

Paul Kenton

The immersive experience placed the painting Currents of Light at its centre, set in the scene and environment in which it was made. The set was hidden behind a retractable screen, driven by a custom motor and an automatic sensor designed by team member Joe Kaufman, who also designed the gallery’s hanging systems and the installation’s overall build.

As visitors walked in, a projected recording of the painting being made played across the screen. The screen became transparent to reveal the artwork behind it, then rose as the recording reached its climax, revealing the whole scene.

All of it was carried by an immersive four-point hi-fi soundscape of city ambience, composed by Will Sainsbury from field recordings made around London, to place the viewer viscerally, almost surreally, at the location itself.

Black drapes hang from a steel scaffold in a sunlit room with a timber floor, where a stepladder and a tall ladder stand amid the drapes. — Building the immersive room for Currents of Light

Looking across the black-draped room, a steel rail runs along the top bar, with fittings mounted on either side and two ladders on the timber floor.

The highlight for me was just to see the positive emotions and enjoyment of the public and collectors, old and new, connecting with my work in that space. At the end of the day, that’s why we do it: for our relationship to painting, and how those paintings connect with people.

Paul Kenton

Many thanks to the team, Amelia, Joe, James, Marina, Audrey, Ian, Ress, Will, Alan, Lydia and Brandon, and to the security team, for their wonderful work.