Up in the Air

Cultprint presents Up in the Air, an exhibition from British artist Thomas Powell exploring the tension between natural systems and those of our own making. 

What if intelligence isn’t knowing more, but becoming more responsive to what we know? 

In a culture of extraction, we have increasingly equated intelligence with accumulation: more information, more data, more connectivity, more productivity, more growth. This collective fiction of ‘more’ as ‘better’ has created a disorientating reality of systemic extremes. Markets shift as resources diminish, political tensions mount while ecological systems deteriorate. More always has a cost.

The past few decades, we experience the consequences of this convergence as though they were forces of nature. The fragile landscapes of our physical world and our psyche eroded in parallel: one drained of its resources, the other flooded with information. Yet if these systems are of our own making, so too is the possibility of changing course.

Caught within the paradoxes of intelligence, power and control, Powell invites us to join him Up in the Air, to consider what comes next.

Exhibition text by Charlotte Pyatt

Exhibition Dates: 17th October – 6th December 2026
Exhibition Walkthrough with Thomas Powell: 2PM & 4PM, 17th October
DON’T PANIC! Opening Party: 8pm until midnight, 17th October

About the Artist

Thomas Powell is a British artist based in Penang whose practice is an attempt to hold a mirror up to ourselves—to explore and make sense of the strange moment we are living through. His work examines how we arrived here, what we are doing to the world around us, and what it means to be human within systems that increasingly seem beyond our control.

Working across painting, printmaking, sculpture, found materials, and digital imagery, Powell draws from history, science, philosophy, literature, and the experiences of those trying to piece together the larger picture of who we are.

The process of making is central to his practice. “I often become immersed in the production of work while listening to books and ideas that gradually feed into, reshape, and refine the ongoing narrative. ” Rather than illustrating a fixed argument, research, intuition, and material experimentation evolve alongside one another, allowing meaning to emerge through the act of making itself. 

“I want the work to be visually compelling, but also to create a moment of reflection—to question the stories we are told, recognise the patterns we repeat, and perhaps distinguish charismatic lies from boring truths and common sense.”

www.thomaspowellartist.com | @thomaspowellartist