| Dates: | 11 September 2025 to 15 September 2025 |
| Times: | 11am to 5pm daily |
| Email: | edgargarrett1@gmail.com |
Burn It Clean presents seven artists – Maxine Allan, Billy Chainsaw, Girl Shit, Ian Helliwell, Gavin Jay, James F Johnston, Rob Rinn – working in paint, print, collage and sound installation. Raw, visceral, surreal and fiercely independent, their work channels the underground and the elemental — offering dark beauty, thought-provoking countercultural resistance and unapologetic feminist propaganda.
Private View Thursday 11th September 6pm to 8pm
MAXINE ALLAN
Website: maxineallan.com
Maxine Allan graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1988 with a BA in Fine Art, majoring in Sculpture. She worked as an art director and scenic artist while exhibiting in galleries across California and New York. In 1992, she returned to the UK, earning a Master’s in Art Therapy driven by her interest in art and the unconscious mind.
In 2003, Allan founded Artyfacts Art Academy, an inspirational art programme that enables local children to explore individuality and self-expression. Her artwork serves as a vestige—a trace of something disappearing or forgotten. Through layered compositions and found objects, Allan creates modern fossils where surrealist conversations emerge between objects.
BILLY CHAINSAW
Website: koolkrakenincorporated.com
Billy Chainsaw is a contemporary Dark Pop artist whose work blends pulp and the arcane to explore mortality, magick, sensuality, and revolution. Using paint, screen printing, photography, and collage, he builds a recognisable visual language that remains open to constant reinvention.
Chainsaw’s work has been shown at London’s Saatchi Gallery, The Horse Hospital, and Fleetwood Gallery in San Francisco. He also designed an album sleeve for The Fall and has contributed cultural commentary to Empire, Bizarre, and Kerrang!
GIRL SHIT
Instagram: @girlshitgirl
Girl Shit is a multidisciplinary artist exploring propaganda, subcultures, and female narratives through references to art history and DIY cultures. Her work is shaped by a lifelong interest in rituals, magick, cinema, and vintage imagery.
She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Sculpture) and exhibits regularly, with work collected both nationally and internationally. She has been shortlisted for the Women in Art Prize and the Visual Art Open (VAA).
IAN HELLIWELL
Website: ianhelliwell.co.uk
Ian Helliwell is a self-taught multimedia artist working across music, film, animation, electronics, instrument building, and experimental media. He has created over 200 experimental films with original electronic soundtracks.
Helliwell builds custom tone generators (Hellitrons and Hellisizers) to compose music. His documentary Practical Electronica (2011) and book Tape Leaders (2016) highlight his commitment to early British electronic music. He runs the Analogue Sound Workshop in Brighton and hosts Synch Pulse, a monthly experimental film night.
GAVIN JAY
Website: monodada.com
Gavin Jay studied Fine Art at Kingston University before touring with The Jim Jones Revue as a bassist. Throughout his music career, he continued to design album art and tour posters. Recently, he has returned to visual art full-time.
Influenced by Max Ernst, Joseph Cornell, Victoriana, the occult, pulp sci-fi, and Pop Art, Jay’s surrealist collages blend nostalgia and disquiet. His work has been shown in group exhibitions in London and Brighton, with a solo show in 2019 at HOK Gallery in The Hague. He is also represented by L’Oeil Ouvert Gallery in Paris.
JAMES F JOHNSTON
Instagram: @jamesfjohnston
Best known for his musical work with Gallon Drunk, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and PJ Harvey, James Johnston began painting during tours as a response to writer’s block. This practice has since become his main focus.
A prolific figurative painter, Johnston exhibits widely. His work has appeared on book and album covers and is held in private and institutional collections, including the University of Chicago in Paris.
“A remarkable gift for loose, raw painting… that straightaway imprints itself on the viewer’s imagination.” – The Economist
ROB RINN
Email: robertduncan.rinn@gmail.com
Rob Rinn studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen. He has shown work at institutions including the Scottish National Gallery, Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Intermedia Gallery, and Cabinet Gallery.
For this exhibition, he revisits an older series combining black-and-white WWII images with monochrome acrylics. Influences include Bob Dylan’s Masters of War, Dr. Strangelove, Samuel Beckett, Terry Gilliam’s Python-era collages, and Plato’s Cave allegory.