ISOBEL ATACUS

isobel.atacus@gmail.com                                                                                                                                          Works between London and Lisbon
My practice incorporates sculpture and text, through which I question the fleeting and ambiguous nature of interactions that take place in the physical realm. Playfully re-directing and re-describing the streams of information that come at us from all sides, I create scenarios and encounters where rules are wilfully misapplied. 
My curatorial work, teaching and pedagogy frequently take collaborative form, and I have just completed a practice-based PhD between King’s College London and the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. 
Alongside my individual practice I direct the icing room artist run space.

CURRENT AND UPCOMING

So Where Do We Go From Here? | Curated by Sarah Sparkes & Jane Millar | Bell House, Dulwich Call Incoming | Curated by Haydn Albrow | 286 Euston Road, UK Show Garden | Curated by Annie Edwards, Tom Coates, Isobel Atacus | Rowditch Lane, UK Falling Faintly, Faintly Falling | Curated by Belinda Worsley | Finch Gallery, UK

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025 There but for the | Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea | Lisbon, PT ______Undercover reach | The Argo Annex | Athens, GR 2019 only if | Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea | Lisbon, PT

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025    Cheapside | Curated by Rachel Mortlock and India Stanbra | Gallery 1 Poultry, Cheapside, UK CARPOOL | Curated by the icing room | Sainsbury’s Car Park, New Cross Gate, UK Fandom | Curated by Bad Art Presents | London Art Services, UK The Wicker Arms | Curated by the icing room and ha.lf | Staffordshire Street, UK Nose Blind and Humming: A Dire Tribe | San Mei Gallery, UK All Mouth No Trousers | Curated by the icing room | Three Rooms, UK Sometimes when | Curated by Anna Choutova | St. Margaret’s House, UK Clinging On | Curated by Poppy Whatmore and Erika Trotzig | twoplustwo gallery, UK The Floor is Lava | Curated by Rachel Mortlock. Janek Nixon & India Stanbra | 125 Shaftesbury Avenue, Bow Arts, UK

2024     Take a Seat | Curated by ha.lf | 125 Shaftesbury Avenue, Bow Arts, UK A Personal Treasure | Bow Open x Lindsey Mendick | Nunnery Gallery, UK
Wind Drift | Curated by Benjamin Arthur Brown | Filet Space, UK Value | Barbican Arts Group Trust, UK

2023    Let Them Eat Fake | Curated by Bad Art Presents | BWG Gallery, UK No wonder you sense mysteriousness | Curated by Nariz Entupido | SMUP, Parede, PT Impermanence | Curated by Alice Campos | Safehouse 2, Copeland Road, Peckham, UK Who holds the sword? | Curated by Isobel Atacus, Flora Bradwell and Lindsey McLean | Stratford, UK

2022    Artworks Open | Selected by Louise Ashcroft & Jasleen Kaur | Barbican Arts Group Trust, UK there but for the | PhD interim review | Inigo rooms, Somerset House, UK Undercover Open | Three person Exhibition | Solar dos Zagallos, Almada, PT Amethyst Deceiver | Curated by the icing room | Atelier Concorde, Lisbon, PT Weatherwatching | Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, PT Snakes on a Picture Plane | Somers Gallery, UK

2021    5th wall | Styroxfabriken, Jakobstad, FI  When was the last time you saw the sea? | Curated by Eleanor Turnbull | Youkobo, Tokyo, JP Moths drink the tears of sleeping birds | the icing room | Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, PT

2020    No wonder, you sense mysteriousness | Goldmali Gallery | Amsterdam, NL ant. | Muddy Yard | Billboard in Clapham, UK 7321974 | Duo Exhibition | Casa do Capitão, Lisbon, PT Days you were happy to see me | PhD interim review | APOSENTADORIA, Lisbon, PT

AWARDS AND RESIDENCIES

2025    The Argo Annex | Artist Residency | Athens, GR
2024    Bow Arts × ha.lf | Artist Residency | 125 Shaftesbury, UK
_______AHRI Research Grant | King’s College London, UK (from 2019) 2022    AZAN | Artist Residency | Mira-Sintra de Meleças, PT
2020    Gulbenkian Award | Lisbon, PT 2017    Longlisted for Ivan Juritz Award | King’s College London, UK
2016    Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea | Artist Residency | Lisbon, PT

PUBLICATIONS AND TALKS

2025    Hi Vis | Artist Talk | Invited by Lindra Khatri | Finch Gallery, UK ___ ____ ‍ ‍ Artist Talk | Chaired by Paul Carey-Kent | ACME Studios, UK 2024    Figs and Figments | Edition of 30 | Printed by Good Press Glasgow _______. E. E. Eva Hesse: Imagining the Unruly | Feminist Lecture Programme, UK
_______
‘Stuffness and Nothings: Reading Eva Hesse through Julia Kristeva’ | French Studies Bulletin, Oxford University Press, UK. 2023    Folding and Layering and Stacking then starting again | DLLRC World making conference | King’s College London, UK _______.Smoked Paprika | COPY II | Berlin, DE 2022    Concatenation | Performance Lecture | King’s College London, UK 2021    Moon | Invited by Lila Matsumoto| Nottingham Poetry Exchange, UK ______. Conscious Isolation Project | Organised by Suzie Olczak | Royal College of Art, UK 2020 The summer I refused to shower | Sunday Story | Vol. 1 Brooklyn, US ___. Sunburn on the moon | Visual Essay | Wrong Wrong #17: Vertigo, Lisbon, PT 2019   Foi, começou, foi | Visual Essay | Wrong Wrong #15: Année érotique | Lisbon, PT ____ Trespass: Etant donnés | Writing Modernism Conference | Nottingham University, UK _____ _. Love letter, or Glass | Publication & Performance | Invited by INLAND | The Poetry Society, UK 2016    I like where your head is at | Artist talk |Invited by Eloisa Ejarque | Lisbon, PT Writing has also appeared in The Beano, Good Press, INLAND, MadSwirl, Revista Decadente, The Big Other, Water-Sound-City

PEDAGOGY

2025- present   Sculptor Tutor | City Lit London, UK 2022 - 2023     Laboratorio Em Obras | Tutor | Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea, PT ______________ Creative workshops and community focused events | HYPHA Studios, UK 2020 - 2022   AIR programme | Mentor | Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon, PT 2021  MOONGAZING | Mentor for Residency Programme run by the icing room, UK 2017 -2018   GROUNDWORK | Mentor | Invited by Marion Tu (AltMFA) | Paris, FR

CURATORIAL

the icing room@the_icing_room

COLLECTIONS

Zaratan-Arte Contemporânea | Lisbon, PT Private Collections: Almada, PT | Margate, UK | London, UK