Framing Light brings together works by Leef and Howard Hodgkin enhanced with lighting technology

By Louisa Walters October 8, 2026, 7:30 pm Edit

Features Editor Louisa Walters has been a lifestyle journalist for nearly 40 years with specific interest in food and travel with a Jewish angle. Her social media community The Restaurant Club is a hub for passionate foodies and Louisa has won many awards for her support of the independent restaurant industry.

Framing Light brings together works from the English (Hampshire) Suites series, a new body of watercolours by Israeli artist Adam Leef, alongside selected hand-painted prints by Howard Hodgkin, in an exhibition curated by Maya Binkin at lighting studio ERCO in Dover Street.

Born in Jerusalem in 1989, Adam now lives in London. His work has been exhibited across Europe, the US and Israel and is rooted in close observation of his surroundings.

Created following Leef’s relocation to Britain in late 2024, the English (Hampshire) Suites were painted during a two-month residency at Xenia Creative Retreat in Hampshire. Working from observation, Leef responded to a landscape profoundly different from the Mediterranean environments that had informed much of his earlier work. The English fields and skies offered new harmonies and specific subtle variations which became the foundation of the series.

Also on show are prints and works on paper by Howard Hodgkin. Both artists share a fascination with colour as an emotional vehicle.

English Hampshire Suite watercolour by Adam Leef

Hosting the show, lighting gallery ERCO becomes an active participant in the exhibition. Using ERCO’s Tunable White technology, the installation continuously modulates colour temperature throughout the day, recreating the subtle tonal shifts of the English sky – from cool, overcast morning light to the warmer atmosphere of late afternoon. In Framing Light, light is therefore encountered twice: first as the subject of painting, and again as the medium through which painting is experienced.

Curator Maya Binkin says showing works by Adam Leef and Howard Hodgkin traces “two distinct yet deeply resonant approaches to landscape, memory, and light. Hodgkin’s paintings glow with an intense, smouldering emotional charge, where colour becomes both atmosphere and fleeting personal moments. In contrast, Leef’s works unfold with restraint, their shifting tonalities and subtle transitions inviting viewers to consider the poetic sensibilities of the palette of British nature, and how light can transform it into the sublime”.