John Lymer

STRATIFIED: Memory, Materials & Meaning

About

John Lymer

John Lymer is a Brighton-based artist whose practice is rooted in process, material exploration and intuitive construction. Working through layered combinations of drawing, photography, print, paint, spray and found surfaces, his works emerge as stratified fields of action in which no single gesture dominates. Meaning develops through accumulation, interruption and return. After making a strong impression during Wach’Art CIC’s Spring Group Show, followed by a quieter presence in Roots & Routes, Lymer returns in 2026 for a major dual-site solo exhibition, inaugurating the Flow Mode Practitioner programme.

What's happening

STRATIFIED: Memory, Materials and Meanings

John Lymer

A dual-site solo exhibition

Mid Street Lab × The Vault | 19 February – 9 March 2026

Guest Curator : tbc

Private View / Press: Friday 20 February, from 6:30pm

A silent auction will take place in the second half of the evening

We invite collectors, patrons of the arts, press and media representatives to

Attend the preview / RSVP by Saturday 14th

Memory, materials and meanings

The title STRATIFIED: Memory, Materials and Meanings refers both to the physical language of the works and to their conceptual depth. Each piece functions as a cross-section, holding traces of earlier actions, partial erasures and renewed gestures. Memory is embedded in material. Meaning is not imposed but accumulated.

The exhibition invites slow looking and movement between sites, asking viewers to consider how surfaces remember, how materials think, and how meaning emerges through time.

A dual-site exhibition conceived as a single work

STRATIFIED is conceived across two distinct yet interdependent environments.

Mid Street Lab functions as the process site. Here, audiences encounter works where layering is exposed, unsettled and exploratory, surfaces that retain the evidence of construction, hesitation and revision. These works sit close to the studio, the laboratory, and the act of making itself.


The Vault, Wach’Art CIC’s seafront gallery, presents larger-scale and more formally resolved works. The surfaces here operate as constructed terrains: dense, architectural and immersive. Memory becomes spatial; materials become compositional; meaning consolidates.


The exhibition is designed to be experienced across both sites. Motifs, materials and decisions reverberate between locations, offering visitors a stratified reading of the practice, from emergence to articulation, from process to presence.

We invite collectors, patrons of the arts, press and media representatives to

Attend the preview / RSVP by Saturday 14th

Support the artist