An introduction to a unique gallery space from its owners Adrian Baynes and Chris. Dugrenier

Almost a year ago, we opened a Gallery in our small rural village in the East Midlands.

Yes !!! When all the galleries, theatres, cinemas & cultural spaces -along with nearly everything else- were closed, we opened our new space.

Actually, it was because everything had closed that we thought:

“If they cannot come to the Gallery, let’s bring the gallery to the street!”

So, #fortheloveofArt and after some ‘light’ modification to the ‘space’, we opened The Assembly Room on Valentine’s Day 2021.

But first, lets us introduce ourselves.

We are Artists Adrian Baynes (founder of Baynes&Co Designers) and Chris. Dugrenier (currently in second year studying for a MA in Fine Arts at Central Saint Martins) and we are totally devoted to the Arts.

The Assembly Room is a petite Gallery where artworks are visible to those who walk by it.

Our space – a white cube of 84 x 82cm x 30cm deep- is small, deliberately so, allowing for a maximum of 2 artworks to be in dialogue. The exhibit changes every 2 to 3 weeks.

With this simple format, we encourage the making of association, opposition, contrast and evolution…

The focus is solely on the artwork with no other information added. Title/Exhibition Text/Artist names and work descriptions are accessible from the website (www.theassemblyroom.co.uk) and on a couple of local social media pages.

Our philosophy is to develop slowly, carefully consider what we show as we build relationships with artists.

Our ambition is to present the work of contemporary artists to showcase the wealth and breath of what art can be to a rural audience. Thus far, we have exhibited oil paintings, pastel drawings, architectural plans, Neon, Light, Kinetic and Digital Art. And even, Installation – albeit small.

To give you an idea of the type of works we show, here’s a selection from the last exhibition. On Portraiture... It featured the works of a past Camberwell College of Arts student, a current MA Fine Art Central Saint Martins student (with the participation of peers from the course) and a recent MA Fine Art Central Saint Martins graduate.

Iris by Rosalind Stoddart (Camberwell Art Student)– an exquisite oil painting, that won the artist the top prize at The Mall Gallery some years back.

Guess Who? IRL vs URL by Chris. Dugrenier (Current MA Fine Art student at Central Saint Martins) plays with the game of the same name and adapts it to present a new type of self-portraiture: the avatars or icons that we choose as our online identities. It is interesting to see what people choose to represent themselves: from a cartoon character or a close up of a physical feature, to an album cover, or even to more abstract forms, the choice is infinite. Self-representation is entering a new realm.

Chris. would like to thank everyone from the MA Fine Art student at Central Saint Martins course and friends who participated.

This photographic work is by Korean Artist Yun Kim who graduated last year. The Three Universals is a work of collected images from www.thispersondoesnotexist.com which generates unlimited ‘human beings’ by GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) one of AI programs. The program collects human images that exist online, maps them and recreates look-alike human faces. Yun Kim explains: “The three of them are forced to remain as ‘they’ erasing ‘me’ or ‘you’ and creating a new community”.

Get in touch

We are always interested in featuring other artists’ works so if you have anything text based for the next Text Art exhibition, you’re welcome to send us an email to discuss further (chris.dugrenier@mac.com).

As we look back on the 3 exhibitions thus far and plan the future, we have a dilemma: do we choose a birthday cake or a Valentine’s Day card?

Adrian & Chris.

Related Links

• The Assembly Room.
• Assembly Room Etsy Shop
• UAL Post-Grad Community
• Adrian Baynes art website
• Adrian Baynes Design website
• Chris. Dugrenier website
• Chris. Dugrenier Instagram 
• Rosalind Stoddart website
• Yun Kim website 

Post-Grad Stories

A thriving online magazine of our postgraduate student voices sharing thought-provoking experiences, practices, thoughts and articles about what matters to them.

Download the PDF Guide to writing articles for Post-Grad Stories

Want to write an article? Get in touch with the Post-Grad Community team PGCommunity@arts.ac.uk

Post-Grad Community at UAL

UAL is home to more than 2,400 postgraduate students working across the fields of art, design, screen, communication, fashion, media and performance.  Within our six world-renowned colleges, we aim to form a creative network of artists, designers and innovators.

Post-Grad Community is an inclusive platform for UAL postgraduate students to share work, find opportunities and connect with other creatives within the University and beyond.