New York-based painter and writer Emil Sands is now co-represented by a joint partnership between Olney Gleason and Victoria Miro, the two galleries have announced. The British artist’s debut solo show with Victoria Miro, titled “Watchmen,” will be on view at its Venice gallery from February 3rd through March 7th, 2026, while Olney Gleason will unveil a major exhibition later in 2027. The news of co-representation for Sands crowns a period of sharp momentum and explosive growth for the rising star, who only began painting a few years ago and was recently featured in The Artsy Vanguard 2026.
Sands is the latest artist in a string of recent signings for the new Olney Gleason, whose partners Eric Gleason and Nicholas Olney previously worked with the artist at the now-defunct Kasmin on “Salt in the throat,” which ran from January to March 2025. “Emil possesses a level of maturity and a commitment to his painting practice that is so far beyond his age,” said Gleason. “He is an innately gifted painter, but he is also restless in his own technical development of the medium. After a perfect debut solo exhibition last year and the momentum Emil has continued to garner since, we are honored and sincerely excited to now formalize Olney Gleason’s representation of Emil.”
This past fall he completed a residency with Victoria Miro in Venice. Sandsa also recently took part in a three-person show, “The Stories We Tell,” alongside Khalif Tahir Thompson and Tidawhitney Lek in Victoria Miro’s London space. “Witnessing the development of this major new series of paintings, created through the gallery’s studio residency program in Venice, has been a joy. We are delighted to welcome Emil to Victoria Miro and excited to partner with our colleagues at Olney Gleason in New York to champion his work,” said Oliver Miro, a partner at Victoria Miro.
Born in London in 1998, Sands is known for his sensitive depictions of the human form that combine portraiture and landscapes. His figures, painted from friends and family and sometimes himself, are often found by the seaside, the contours of their vulnerable, bare bodies rendered in soft hues. He began painting self-portraits during COVID lockdowns in his family’s London garage following a one-year fine art painting foundation program at Central Saint Martins in 2017. After graduating from Cambridge (where he studied Classics) in 2022, he was soon selected for the Henry Fellowship at Yale University to study fine art and writing. He made his New York solo show debut in 2023 with the downtown gallery Tibor de Nagy.
He also maintains a writing practice, and published an essay entitled “Struck on one Side” in The Atlantic in 2023. His forthcoming memoir, I Am Not Achilles, will be published in 2027 by Scribner in the United States and Picador in the United Kingdom.
