Tainted Love

Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery is delighted to present Tainted Love, a group exhibition co-curated by Soheila Sokhanvari and Kristin Hjellegjerde. Borrowing its title from Soft Cell’s 1981 pop hit of the same name, the show explores the complexities of relationships in all their forms – from romantic heartbreaks to unrequited love, fractured family bonds, friendships that fade and internal fracture – tracing a turbulent terrain where intimacy is shaped as much by rupture as by connection.

Across the exhibition, love is stretched between knowing and unknowing, intimacy and distance, recognition and denial. What emerges is not a singular definition, but a series of unstable states in which love is felt most acutely at the point where it begins to unravel.

Featured artists include Sverre Bjaertnes, Brian Dawn Chalkley, Eileen Cooper, Ben Edge, Roxana Halls, Sally Kindberg, Colm Mac Athlaoich, Tamsin Morse, Mu Pan, Trupti Patel, Claire Partington, Cheryl Pope, Bethany Stead, Darcy Whent, and Caroline Wong.