Sunlight streams through sheer, purple curtains with leaf patterns, casting bright patches on the fabric. Behind the curtains, a wall displays blurred images or artworks. In the right background, part of a woman's face is visible in a photo.

Very High Frequency Exhibition Tour

with Hilary Lloyd, Anthea Hamilton and Bod Mellor

Hilary Lloyd is joined by artists Anthea Hamilton and Bod Mellor on the final weekend of her current exhibition, Very High Frequency. 

With a shared interest in image-making, television and their cultural resonances, Lloyd, Hamilton and Mellor will discuss Lloyd’s exhibition, as well as the wider artistic legacy of Dennis Potter. 

Very High Frequency combines audiovisual elements, performative interludes, filmed interviews and archival materials to stage a non-linear encounter with Potter’s work. More widely, the exhibition and surrounding programmes engage with the themes, confrontations and atmospheres that defined Potter’s oeuvre, navigating his explorations of chronic illness, death, sex, power, morality and class. 

Potter has been lauded as Britain’s most pioneering playwright, television dramatist and writer. Best known for his TV serials, his Brechtian techniques brokered a meaningful and daring relationship between experimental theatre and television. Challenging the then-dominant naturalism of terrestrial television dramas, Potter successfully pioneered a multitude of dramatic devices to blur fantasy and reality, including intertwined flashback and fantasy sequences, direct-to-camera address, lip-syncing, musical interludes and the use of adult actors to play children. 

Supported by Kvadrat.

Lead Programme Supporters: The Ampersand Foundation, Shane Akeroyd and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Supported by a National Lottery Project Grant from Arts Council England and The Studio Voltaire Council. With additional support from Brian Boylan and Raven Row, London.

Studio Voltaire’s 2025-2026 exhibition programme is supported by Cockayne Grants for the Arts.

  1. Hilary Lloyd (b. 1964, Halifax, England) lives and works in London. With interests in architecture, fashion, textiles and colour, Lloyd’s work centres on film and video whilst also invoking sculpture, painting and installation. Engaging directly with their sites of production or of exhibition making, the films resist conventional notions of ‘duration’, instead representing filmic tableaux’s to be encountered. Some are almost devoid of movement or incident, while others employ a rapidly panning or shifting point of view. The work involves a tension between an ambiguous, seemingly casual subject matter and a precise arrangement of images and installation equipment.Lloyd’s work centres on film and video whilst also invoking sculpture, painting and installation.

    She has exhibited internationally, with solo exhibitions including: Ok darling, show’s over!, Roland Ross, Kent, England (2024); You want it to be art and I want it to be a magazine, International Centre for Contemporary Culture, San Sebastian (2024); Dog bEar Scarf, Josey, Norwich (2022), Car Park, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2019); Chance Encounters V, LOEWE Foundation, Miami (2019); Bar, BAR, Turin (2019); Theatre, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2017); Awful Girls, Dorich House Museum, Dorich House Fellowship & Dora Volume 1, Kingston (2017); Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2016); Robot and Balfour, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2015); Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2012), Artists Space, New York (2011); Raven Row, London (2010); Tramway, Glasgow (2009); Le Consortium, Dijon (2009); Kunstverein München (2006); Waiters, Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects, Venice Biennale (2003); Kino der Dekonstruktion, Frankfurter Kunstverein (2000); and Chisenhale Gallery, London (1999). Lloyd was nominated for the 2011 Turner Prize for her exhibition of 2010 at Raven Row, London.

  2. Anthea Hamilton (b. 1978) is a London-based artist. Recent projects include Decade of Emotion, Pourquoi Paris?, Pinault Collection, Paris (2023);  Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to the 21st centuries, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2023); Mash Up, MUHKA, Belgium (2022); The New Life, Secession, Vienna, Austria (2018); The Squash, Tate Britain, London (2018); Anthea Hamilton Reimagines Kettle’s Yard, Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, England (2017); Lichen! Libido! Chastity!, SculptureCenter, New York (2015). Her work has been presented as part of the 58th Venice Biennale, British Art Show 8 and numerous international venues including Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin (with Nicholas Byrne) and 10th Gwangju Biennale.

  3. Bod Mellor (b. 1970, Manchester,UK) lives and works in London. Their artistic practice involves creating paintings of public figures from British television shows, particularly focusing on characters from crime and legal dramas. Their main themes revolve around identity, surveillance, and the relationship between reality and fiction. Mellor's medium of choice is painting, and they often incorporate elements of seriality and performance in their work.

    Recent solo exhibitions People Who Knock on the Door, 2024 at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin and SCATO, 2024 at Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen.

  4. This event takes place in the Gallery. If you have any questions or need assistance with your visit, please feel welcome to contact us at +44 (0) 20 7622 1294 or info@studiovoltaire.org. Read Studio Voltaire's full access information here. 

  5. Hilary Lloyd, Very High Frequency, 2025. Installation view at Studio Voltaire. Image courtesy of the artist, Sadie Coles HQ and Studio Voltaire. Credit Dominique Croshaw

A dark art gallery with arched ceilings features a black reflective platform, vertical sheer purple curtains, spotlights, and video screens showing various abstract and figurative films. Three arched windows filter daylight into the space.

Hilary Lloyd
Very High Frequency

Exhibition
A television on a black wheeled stand displays an image of Dennis Potter wearing a beige suit, sitting and talking. The TV is in a corner of a green-walled room with dark flooring and an acoustic panel on one wall.

Hilary Lloyd and Dennis Potter
Seeing the Blossom

Exhibition
A large, colourful mural covers the side of a building. The artwork features singer George Michael with various objects around him, including a rocket, a Rubik's cube, and a vintage TV. The background is space-themed with stars and a cosmic vibe. Text in the image reads "WHAT AM I?.

Bod Mellor
George Michael TV Outside

Offsite
A small urban garden with a tiled water feature in the centre, surrounded by various potted plants on a brick ledge against a brick wall. The area has a stone-paved floor and is illuminated by two wall-mounted lights.

Anthea Hamilton
The Garden

Onsite