NEMOTA – MUTINESS

​Private Viewing: Wednesday 4 November, 6 – 9 pm
Exhibition Dates: 5 – 26 November 2026
Opening Hours: by appointment

​Location: 13 Ramsgate Street, E8 2FD, London

​NEMOTA brings together the work of Oleg Prokofiev, Igor Ominin, Meg Shirayama and Eddie McLean Kaye within the Prokofiev Studio, a space acquired specifically to house Oleg Prokofiev’s archive.

​The title NEMOTA is drawn from Oleg Prokofiev’s poem I Like the Music of the Spheres, in which the word refers to muteness or wordlessness. The poem moves between sound, muteness and silence, providing a starting point for thinking about communication beyond language and the relationships between visual art, music, objects, gesture and space.

​I like the music of the spheres
it hasn’t punctuation marks
harmony doesn’t stumble
poses are not clogged
and what you hear
from one muteness
imperceptibly moves into another

​Oleg Prokofiev’s practice moved across painting, sculpture, poetry and music, with a particular interest in geometry, pattern, rhythm and constructed form. His work provides the historical and conceptual starting point for the exhibition. Igor Ominin brings another perspective on abstraction, colour and composition, drawing on a practice that moved between painting, graphic art and design.

​The contemporary artists are not brought together through stylistic similarity. Instead, their work enters into dialogue through shared questions around construction, material, pattern, movement, repetition and the relationship between individual elements and the spaces they occupy.

​Meg Shirayama works through geometric and architectural forms, exploring colour, movement and spatial relationships. Her practice moves between painting, object and architectural form and extends into music and performance, creating a direct connection between visual and musical structures.

​Eddie McLean Kaye works through fragments, sewing, canvas, painting and constructed surfaces. Processes of cutting, assembling, editing and joining remain visible within the work, creating an active relationship between material, construction and composition.

​The space itself forms an important part of the exhibition. The Prokofiev Studio is not a conventional white-cube gallery. Visitors move from an ordinary office entrance into a space containing Oleg’s archive, a music studio, domestic elements and gallery areas. This movement between the familiar and unfamiliar, and between the domestic, archival and artistic, forms part of the experience of the exhibition.

​The relationship between visual art and music extends throughout NEMOTA. Rhythm, repetition, pause, variation and silence can be found across both visual and musical composition. Sound is considered not simply as accompaniment to the artworks, but as another material within the space, creating an atmospheric layer that moves through the exhibition.

​NEMOTA invites visitors to look, listen and move through the space, considering what can be communicated through visual language when words fall away.