Freddie Foulkes opened his own gallery this March, in a railway arch in Shepherds Bush Market, after a few years running nomadic exhibitions with artists he'd come to know closely. He's also a familiar face to Oliver Spencer followers, having walked in one of Oli's shows back in 2017 before featuring in our recent Autumn '26 campaign. We sat down with Freddie to talk about what he looks for in an artist, his current show The Secret Garden, what's coming next at the gallery, and the pieces from the new collection he's made his own.
What is Freddie Foulkes Gallery, when did it open, and where are you based?
Freddie Foulkes Gallery is an art gallery, it’s currently based in a railway arch in Shepherds Bush Market. I started in 2023, albeit in quite different form. I was doing nomadic exhibitions for a few years, between 2023 to 2025. With luck, once or twice a year, I was curating a show with an artist whose work I admired and had really close proximity to. So, I was always working really closely with living artists.
That’s not to say I didn't have other work along the way and get myself stuck in various projects. I worked in music for a while. Once I'd finished my studies, I got a real interest in contemporary artists working today in London. You know, people near me, whose studios I could go to and see their canvases, paint and easels, etc. I got bitten by the bug, I suppose, and really just endeavoured to save up some money and open up a gallery, which I did in March this year.
So, what do you look for in the artists that you represent or exhibit?
It is, well, it's just a feeling, really. A lot of is intuition, but of course that intuition is guided by you having trained your eye, having gone to see lots of art elsewhere, having gone to lots of exhibitions, whether they are at art schools, commercial galleries, or other institutions. I studied art history, and that certainly helped. But really, it's a feeling or a thought, you know, that the work is worthwhile, that it's got substance, that it's interesting, that it's sincere - even if it's being playful. Sometimes, that it's self-conscious and it carries a life of its own. And, you know, there's lots of great work like that, but beyond that, you have to find that it will continue to be this way.
Also, if you want to work with an artist for longer, you have to find that you can see that happening time and time again, that their work will continue to interest you and continue to captivate you. For the past couple couple of years maybe, I've been looking for an integrity behind the work, first and foremost. A sincerity of feeling, pretty much.
People may recognise you from our Autumn 26 campaign and some other Oliver Spencer projects over the past few years. How did you get involved in some of these Oliver Spencer projects? And what was it like featuring in our recent campaign?
I've always been interested in clothes - all things visual really, obviously art included. At one point, I think I fancied myself being a fashion model, or at least I was really interested in that. It seems a world away now, but hey. A friend of mine introduced me to Oli, saying that he chooses his models for runways, shows and shoots, from all sorts of different places. He doesn't go solely for modelling agencies.
And so, a long time ago now, maybe 2017 or 2018, when Oli was doing London Collections Men's. I walked in a show for him. Years down the line, we bumped into one another and he's saying, “oh, we should do another shoot” as he characteristically does - as a spontaneous, free-thinking kind of guy. But, yeah, I did the recent campaign. It was sort of daunting, to see myself on the internet, but hey, there we go. I didn't really think it through, I suppose, that I'd see myself in a photograph.
Tell us about the items you’ve picked from the autumn collection.
Yeah, I've got these lovely corduroy trousers - needle cord… I suppose I run the gallery by myself. Every now and then I get people to help me, to cover me, if I have to run away and do something. Sometimes I never quite know what I'll be doing next, really. I move about a lot. I need something that's comfortable, wearable, durable, but also smart. I mean, that's my disposition. I love wearing really sharp suits, but you've got to have the creases just right, and it's all a bit finicky and tiring sometimes. So subsequently I think corduroys are a great thing, because it's smart and it's durable. And this kind of midnight blue is just so elegant. And they have a good leg as well, they sit just right.
And I like the suede jacket too. As I say, I like looking smart. These things are smart. But there's a flexibility, a breathability, a slight informality to them. Perhaps if I'm really thinking about it, maybe that’s the ethos of the gallery as well. It’s that it is a smart thing. And I hope that people spend time with the works when they come and that they see a kind of permanence about it. But then equally, I'm in a railway arch in Shepherds Bush Market, so there's got to be a degree of flexibility and a casual... there's got to be a slight casualness about it.
