Chiswick Artists Unveil Woodwork Exhibition at Riverside Studios
Collaboration between Kit Line and Martin Wharmby goes back thirty years
Left: Kit Line. Right: Martin Wharmby
November 14, 2026
Three decades after first floating the idea at the nursery school gates, two Chiswick artists and fathers have finally brought their shared creative vision to life. Kit Line and Martin Wharmby are presenting RELIEF: Low relief - constructions in wood, a joint exhibition running at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios from 5 November 2026 through 28 January 2027.
The collaboration traces its roots back to the 1990s, when the pair met while their daughters were attending Tara House nursery school in Chiswick. Discovering a mutual passion for three-dimensional design and working with wood, they discussed the possibility of staging a joint show—a conversation that has now come to fruition just down the road from where it began.
While united by their medium, the two artists bring distinct career paths and contrasting aesthetics to the gallery walls.
Kit Line is graduate of Wimbledon School of Art (1979–83) with a Foundation and BA in 3D Design (Theatre Design). He balances his sculptural practice with a career as a Production Designer in film and television.
For RELIEF, Line actively seeks out the most derelict, weathered, and gouged sheets of separated plywood he can find. Rather than seeing damage, he treats the aged patina as a creative compass—noting that the more useless a piece appears for its original purpose, the stronger his desire to reclaim it. His tactile process involves scorching, dyeing, or painting individual components with enamel paint before cutting and aligning them into new, cohesive planes. Working without rigid preconceptions, Line allows each surface to evolve organically, even incorporating a blowtorch-charring and polishing technique on varied woods to reveal rich underlying grains before inlaying them. In a continuous cycle of reinvention, offcuts and discarded fragments from one sculpture routinely become the starting blocks for the next. (More of his work can be viewed at www.kitlinesculpture.com.
Martin Wharmby’s artistic pedigree stretches back to a pivotal moment in British art education: in 1957, he joined the very first Foundation Course at Leicester College of Art, an experimental programme led by Tom Hudson and Victor Pasmore known as the 'Basic Design Course' that reshaped traditional art teaching. Following his studies in 3D design, Wharmby spent decades working as a product designer until 2000, later returning to academia to complete a Masters in Drawing at Wimbledon College of Art in 2012.
Wharmby’s low-relief wood constructions showcase crisp, architectural lines and bold, minimalist blocks of colour—offering a striking geometric counterpoint to Line’s richly textured, patchwork compositions.
Riverside Studios is at 101 Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, W6 9BN.
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