Exhibition
Paula Parole
A Promise Is A Spell
11 Feburary – 8 March 2026
Opening Preview: 11 February 2026, 6–8pm
A Promise Is a Spell marks Paula Parole’s debut solo exhibition, approaching fairy tales as contested mythologies that have long scripted womanhood through ideals of beauty, obedience, and the fantasy of rescue. Working across painting, sculpture, and found materials, Parole interrogates the gendered promises disguised within fantastical narratives, revealing how they discipline women’s bodies, desires, and sense of worth. With or without a Prince Charming, women are coded into the imperative to be happy, to be sweet, and to take on the endless labour of emotional and social maintenance—an ongoing condition for which there is no end or happily-ever-after.
The ambiguous pull of nostalgia shapes Parole’s emotional register throughout her intuitive creative process. What begins as the sweetness of childhood, when everything feels possible, slowly curdles into a more bitter longing, as the realities of adulthood surface and early promises are exposed as unmet or hollow. The exhibition unfolds within a domestic environment that oscillates between care and control. At its centre stands an adult-sized, immobilised rocking horse: a relic of promised freedom sculpted unusable by scale and expectation. In this metamorphosis from animate to inanimate, Parole fragments linear narrative threads and queers boundaries to generate space in which different possibilities for being women can co-exist. A Promise Is A Spell is a foremost a liberatory gesture towards motivating women to re-tell the myths we have inherited, as well as those we have ourselves created.
Paula Parole (1992) holds a BA from the Academy of Fine Art Maastricht, where she specialised in film and graduated with distinction in 2016. After releasing two award-winning short films, she shifted her focus to fine art, while working as an art mediator for the Boros Collection Berlin.
Since 2020, Paula has been based in London. She earned a Graduate Diploma and a Master of Fine Art, both with distinction, from Chelsea College of Art and Central Saint Martins, UAL, for which she was awarded the Mona Hatoum Foundation Scholarship.
Her work has been exhibited across the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and China, including institutions like TATE Collective, Guts Gallery, Liliya Art Gallery, Bonian Space, Filet and Bombfactory Art Foundation. She has been a finalist for the Prisma Art Prize, shortlisted for New Contemporaries 2024, and featured in Muse Magazine, ArtUltra, ArtPlugged, FAD Magazine and the Financial Times.
She also co-founded the Filthy Fox Auction Club, which introduces a selection of art graduates each year through auction to support early careers. Its first event, held in East London in 2022, challenged traditional sales and has supported over 40 emerging artists so far.
A Promise Is A Spell
Opening Preview: 11 February 2026, 6–8pm
A Promise Is a Spell marks Paula Parole’s debut solo exhibition, approaching fairy tales as contested mythologies that have long scripted womanhood through ideals of beauty, obedience, and the fantasy of rescue. Working across painting, sculpture, and found materials, Parole interrogates the gendered promises disguised within fantastical narratives, revealing how they discipline women’s bodies, desires, and sense of worth. With or without a Prince Charming, women are coded into the imperative to be happy, to be sweet, and to take on the endless labour of emotional and social maintenance—an ongoing condition for which there is no end or happily-ever-after.
The ambiguous pull of nostalgia shapes Parole’s emotional register throughout her intuitive creative process. What begins as the sweetness of childhood, when everything feels possible, slowly curdles into a more bitter longing, as the realities of adulthood surface and early promises are exposed as unmet or hollow. The exhibition unfolds within a domestic environment that oscillates between care and control. At its centre stands an adult-sized, immobilised rocking horse: a relic of promised freedom sculpted unusable by scale and expectation. In this metamorphosis from animate to inanimate, Parole fragments linear narrative threads and queers boundaries to generate space in which different possibilities for being women can co-exist. A Promise Is A Spell is a foremost a liberatory gesture towards motivating women to re-tell the myths we have inherited, as well as those we have ourselves created.
Paula Parole (1992) holds a BA from the Academy of Fine Art Maastricht, where she specialised in film and graduated with distinction in 2016. After releasing two award-winning short films, she shifted her focus to fine art, while working as an art mediator for the Boros Collection Berlin.
Since 2020, Paula has been based in London. She earned a Graduate Diploma and a Master of Fine Art, both with distinction, from Chelsea College of Art and Central Saint Martins, UAL, for which she was awarded the Mona Hatoum Foundation Scholarship.
Her work has been exhibited across the UK, Netherlands, Germany, and China, including institutions like TATE Collective, Guts Gallery, Liliya Art Gallery, Bonian Space, Filet and Bombfactory Art Foundation. She has been a finalist for the Prisma Art Prize, shortlisted for New Contemporaries 2024, and featured in Muse Magazine, ArtUltra, ArtPlugged, FAD Magazine and the Financial Times.
She also co-founded the Filthy Fox Auction Club, which introduces a selection of art graduates each year through auction to support early careers. Its first event, held in East London in 2022, challenged traditional sales and has supported over 40 emerging artists so far.