This new body of work, three years in the making, features 16 large scale portrait paintings alongside a series of photographic portraits. Curated by Guerin Projects, the exhibition will take place in The Bottle Factory—a grand 1895 warehouse in Peckham near the Old Kent Road restored by Fabrix. During the private viewing, LUAP’s photographic portraits, captured in his studio with his trusted Nikon camera, will be projected on a large scale, surrounding viewers with deeply emotive images amid the striking architecture of the space.

The artist’s process is complex, involving both incredible technical skill and an extraordinary capacity to invite openness from people as they share their life stories. The works are abstracted both theoretically and visually. Over the past few years, LUAP's artistic practice has evolved from a representational approach to an expressive, deconstructed style.

LUAP’s works explore the mechanisms of the human psyche, with sitters represented through a fractured lens that reveals the infinitely multifaceted nature of personality—“the fractured parts of our psyche, piecing them together, and understanding them.” These pieces delve into the various aspects, life events, and responses that shape a personality, investigating our own individual, fragmented storylines and how they weave together to form the tapestries of our identities.

This work is not about sadness, but about transformation, depicting the subtle shifts in our state of mind. Each image portrays people from diverse backgrounds holding personal artefacts imbued with deep emotional significance, sparking intimate conversations about mental health and identity. The artist’s studio becomes a safe space where even traumatic stories can be recounted openly.

The sitters are presented in ways that reveal both vulnerability and resilience, engaging in an inner dialogue that becomes visible. What is portrayed goes beyond mere likeness; it is a deeper truth—an exploration of self-perception, the masks we wear, and the parts of ourselves we often keep hidden.

LUAP’s Pink Bear recurs as a silent guardian in these images, providing warmth and comfort. Usually the focal point in LUAP’s other works, here the bear steps into a different role, symbolising a refuge from darkness and a guide through the chaos of thought. The bear appears in an abstracted form in all of the portraits, its warm pink hue offering a comforting halo in the background of each painting. It becomes a guardian and safe keeper of the "secrets" being told.

These portraits serve as the starting point for a larger narrative, reaching beyond the surface to touch the raw essence of human emotion, struggle, and the search for wholeness. This series opens a dialogue about the meaning of representation and how a fragmented whole can, in fact, become a unified entity.

LUAP said:

“We don’t see the boundaries of the mirror when looking at these portraits. Instead, we see fragmented reflections that challenge the way we typically perceive ourselves. It’s as if each broken shard reveals a different, isolated pieces of ourselves, distorted yet undeniably familiar. In this sense, the portraits echo a daily reality—one where our own reflections are often places of scrutiny. We’re inclined to scrutinise ourselves in fragments, honing in on perceived flaws, rather than appreciating a unified whole. The cracks in the mirror reveal these parts individually, mirroring our tendency to criticise rather than embrace our full, complex selves”