Haricot Gallery is thrilled to present I’m Fine, How Are You? A solo exhibition of new works by Elliott Pittam.

 

Pittam paints the people and scenes he’s encountered throughout his life, figures observed, half-remembered, or invented from a passing moment. The works don’t tell complete stories so much as offer single frames, a moment caught mid-action, like a still lifted from something longer, leaving the rest to the imagination.

 

His characters sit between humour and melancholy, pride and embarrassment, confidence and doubt. What gives the work its edge is a sense that British social life hasn’t moved on as far as it likes to think. The politeness, the class signals, the indulgence and the turning of a blind eye are inherited habits. Victorian echoes surface throughout, not as history but as something still being performed.

 

Painting came to Pittam after more than a decade as a tattoo artist. It was a release from the precision of detailed black-and-white work, looser and led by colour and pared-down figures. Each painting begins with a coloured ground that sets the mood, with colour harmonies layered on top so the base tone stays present throughout. He’s drawn to surfaces that feel lived-in rather than polished, with a chalky and weathered quality to them. Carrying the traces of their making, with areas left unresolved and imperfections allowed to remain.

 

The title borrows a phrase that feels distinctly British, a bit of politeness, said almost without thinking, that smooths over whatever might really be going on underneath. The paintings work the same way. Ordinary on the surface, with room left for what’s happening beneath.

 

 

 

Elliott Pittam is a self-taught artist who lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include: I’m Fine, How Are You?, Haricot Gallery, London, 2026. His work can be found in private collections in the USA, UK and Europe.