Blue Shop Gallery presents
Jenny Lewis
‘Mutinous Bodies and other Stories’
Gallery 2
11th - 28th November 2026
PV Wednesday 11th November 6-8pm 2026
72 Brixton Road, Oval SW9 6BH
Gallery opening hours:
Thu - Sat | 12pm - 5pm or by appointment
Artist Jenny Lewis was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition in 2009. Autoimmune disease occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own healthy cells, tissues, or organs. It is estimated to affect up to 10% of the global population, with women making up around 80% of those living with an autoimmune condition. Many autoimmune diseases are described as ‘invisible illnesses’: their symptoms may not be visible, can fluctuate unpredictably, and are therefore often difficult for others to understand. Diagnosis can take years, while stigma and disbelief can leave people feeling shame, isolated within bodies that betray them.
Mutinous Bodies is a series of six photopolymer etchings. Each work is derived from a single analogue photobooth portrait in Lewis’s earlier project, Autoportraits: Mutinous Bodies, made with 22 people living with autoimmune disease or chromosome mutations.
In Autoportraits, Lewis sought to relinquish the camera and her own authorial role in representing other people’s experiences. In Mutinous Bodies, she continues to question the conventions of portraiture while reintroducing the artist’s hand. The slow, meticulous process of making each etching suffuses each image with her time, care, and close physical attention. The photopolymer process uses light-sensitive metal plates exposed to ultraviolet light. Using an intaglio printing technique, Lewis applies burnt-umber ink to the etched plate, carefully wiping and preparing its surface, enveloped by blankets before passing through press. Each print is made by hand, making every impression unique. Small variations and imperfections remain visible in the finished works – echoing the irregularities and vulnerabilities of the body.
Lewis selected six portraits that, for her, evoke the shifting emotional and physical experiences of autoimmune disease: moments of calm and reprieve alongside discomfort, pain, and retreat. Yet the portraits are not illustrations of illness. Removed from the context of diagnosis, the figures become more ambiguous, resisting a fixed reading and allowing the subjects to exist beyond their symptoms and the categories and stigma associated with illness. Each portrait is held within a deep white border, creating a sense of isolation. Yet displayed together, the six works form a quiet collective: separate bodies, connected through shared
experiences of uncertainty and impermanence. Alone, but together.
Mutinous Bodies reflects on what it means to inhabit a body that can feel unstable and unpredictable. For Lewis, this heightened awareness of fragility can also sharpen an appreciation of life: of small pleasures, fleeting moments, and the enchanting beauty of being alive. Impermanence, decay and mortality are not exceptional states, but fundamental parts of human experience.
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