[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":193},["ShallowReactive",2],{"exhibition-more-and-better":3},{"dateTo":4,"gallery":5,"exhibitionText":46,"artistName":162,"_id":163,"dateFrom":164,"artistBio":165,"showName":147,"slug":190},"2026-12-19",[6,10,14,18,22,26,30,34,38,42],{"asset":7,"caption":9},{"_ref":8},"image-0b8a7073bebc2ad992fe02f8ed1a25eef2df8965-3600x2400-jpg","Installation view",{"caption":11,"asset":12},"Leo Costelloe, Assemblage 3 (Party Dress), 2026",{"_ref":13},"image-d99975daea93cf57da67ba7d41fcb429fe3ee57d-2400x3600-jpg",{"asset":15,"caption":17},{"_ref":16},"image-14b83c5c2311987469ed0dbf5b6945a0d3556826-2400x3600-jpg","Leo Costelloe, Assemblage 2 (Evening Gown), 2026",{"caption":19,"asset":20},"Leo Costelloe, Assemblage 1 (Nightgown), 2026",{"_ref":21},"image-0d0d39922dc84cb06010f53e537dac916fd7ac86-2400x3600-jpg",{"asset":23,"caption":25},{"_ref":24},"image-35d8bc58f391afd068943c2a1b7656f0ac6fbc9c-2400x3600-jpg","Leo Costelloe, Parurier Floral, 2026",{"asset":27,"caption":29},{"_ref":28},"image-ad3e47f4c565f09e594f6edd027bb2e21394c369-3600x2400-jpg","Leo Costelloe, Silver Shoe (Left Foot), 2026",{"caption":31,"asset":32},"Leo Costelloe, Silver Shoe (Right Foot), 2026",{"_ref":33},"image-af2c72696a88ca945f2655eeef5282dc71f4e807-3600x2400-jpg",{"caption":35,"asset":36},"Leo Costelloe, Perfume II (Civet), 2026",{"_ref":37},"image-b73b07bebdc6dfc6fe053fdde783a8113370bcab-2400x3600-jpg",{"asset":39,"caption":41},{"_ref":40},"image-336e5b0cd17232d069a8608443a83704cbb2a51b-2400x3600-jpg","Leo Costelloe, Hat Box, 2026",{"caption":43,"asset":44},"Leo Costelloe, Saturday Night Coiffure (Stephen Jones), 2026",{"_ref":45},"image-d772b47406fe633c0036b08ed8d445f484b6f182-2400x3600-jpg",[47,67,74,106,130,138,154],{"_type":48,"style":49,"_key":50,"markDefs":51,"children":52},"block","normal","b0fd940f6b95",[],[53,58,63],{"_key":54,"_type":55,"marks":56,"text":57},"dfaea5ad73b3","span",[],"Leo Costelloe’s solo ",{"marks":59,"text":61,"_key":62,"_type":55},[60],"em","More and Better ","b45a47d7139b",{"marks":64,"text":65,"_key":66,"_type":55},[],"explores the fantasies and desires attached to shopping, luxury, and the material conditions behind their promises.","9d09ad616f9f",{"children":68,"_type":48,"style":49,"_key":72,"markDefs":73},[69],{"_type":55,"marks":70,"text":71,"_key":66},[],"Laid with soft green flooring and furnished with a low display plinth, the gallery space nods to the understated theatricality of a department store interior, drawing on the ways retail display turns looking into wanting. Costelloe presents totems of consumer desire: shoes, hats, dresses, perfume, a gift box. Four framed mixed-media collages combine fabric, reclaimed vintage fur, ostrich feathers, human hair, ribbon and 1950s silk flowers, that come together to suggest outfits devoid of wearers, and an impressionistic floral bouquet. In some ways, the works recall Victorian dress diaries, in which affluent women assembled fabric swatches and textile scraps into intimate, diaristic records of their wardrobes. Recording clothes worn on particular occasions, these albums preserved social expectations and sartorial etiquette alongside personal, sentimental attachments.","17d11f3695ae",[],{"markDefs":75,"children":76,"_type":48,"style":49,"_key":105},[],[77,81,85,89,93,97,101],{"marks":78,"text":79,"_key":80,"_type":55},[],"The materials that Costelloe brings together highlight the sometimes sticky relationship between provenance, trade and desire. Reindeer hide and vintage pelts were sourced from online second-hand sellers under deadstock labels, while human hair extensions were sold under the designation “Russian”, an unverifiable geographical label which supposedly marks quality, drawing attention to the racialised hierarchies that shape value in the Western hair market. ","6e619b104d22",{"text":82,"_key":83,"_type":55,"marks":84},"Perfume II (Civet)","04bff9745107",[60],{"_type":55,"marks":86,"text":87,"_key":88},[],", a flame-worked glass bottle containing civet essence, extends this tension between a material’s origins and its appeal. Drawn from the glands of the African civet cat, the essence in its raw form has a pungent, fecal animal smell which, paradoxically, when diluted, becomes the sweet, floral musk prized in commercial perfumery, used in classic fragrances like Chanel ","79454749afe0",{"_key":90,"_type":55,"marks":91,"text":92},"f1e7950178e7",[60],"No. 5",{"_type":55,"marks":94,"text":95,"_key":96},[]," and Guerlain ","7ae5a3fbdc61",{"text":98,"_key":99,"_type":55,"marks":100},"Shalimar","839d50d133cd",[60],{"text":102,"_key":103,"_type":55,"marks":104},". The perfume holds both the promise of glamour and something less easily marketed: an animal substance whose transformation into a desirable scent evokes ethically fraught histories of extraction and the trade of materials prized as exotic.","c08a7d6845d7",[],"17be01a8a425",{"style":49,"_key":107,"markDefs":108,"children":109,"_type":48},"1125027de0de",[],[110,114,118,122,126],{"text":111,"_key":112,"_type":55,"marks":113},"Costelloe’s personal investment in meticulous artisan handwork and precious materials mirrors the role that craftsmanship, scarcity and prestige play in sustaining the luxury fashion market. ","6064796e1216",[],{"_type":55,"marks":115,"text":116,"_key":117},[60],"Silver Shoes,","d0f7b48b7ea7",{"_type":55,"marks":119,"text":120,"_key":121},[]," made from woven silver and diamonds, draws directly on 19th-century shoe design, translating a historical form into precious materials. The 1950s deadstock flowers in ","1910d26274c9",{"_type":55,"marks":123,"text":124,"_key":125},[60],"Parurier Floral","5ee5ae1d023b",{"marks":127,"text":128,"_key":129,"_type":55},[]," (the French term for specialised artificial flower artisans) are made from fine silk organza, individually dyed and assembled using increasingly rare historic techniques. Costelloe’s use of these patterns and materials attends to what disappears as clothing and its production are adapted for mass-production: artisanal skills and the traces of individual makers.","4f0ceca525cd",{"style":49,"_key":131,"markDefs":132,"children":133,"_type":48},"f85e627f8ee6",[],[134],{"marks":135,"text":136,"_key":137,"_type":55},[],"The interest in preservation and fashion history continues in a hat box adorned with a sterling silver ribbon, containing twenty-five Polaroids taken by Costelloe at British milliner Stephen Jones’ atelier. Documenting bespoke hats preserved in Jones’ archive, the photographs echo the dress diaries’ intimate records of clothing. Here, however, the personal wardrobe gives way to the couture archive, where singular designs are preserved for their craftsmanship, creative innovation and historical significance. Gathered in their box, the photographs are ultimately phantom reproductions of objects whose rarity makes them both desirable and largely inaccessible.","a38517ba178b",{"markDefs":139,"children":140,"_type":48,"style":49,"_key":153},[],[141,145,149],{"marks":142,"text":143,"_key":144,"_type":55},[],"Together, Costelloe’s works ask how items acquire value through their origins, materiality, the labour invested in them and the names attached to them. They consider how possessions become evidence of who we are, or hope to be, and how those possibilities are shaped by economic privilege and access. The title ","aa3eab65fceb",{"marks":146,"text":147,"_key":148,"_type":55},[60],"More and Better","3da095667e23",{"marks":150,"text":151,"_key":152,"_type":55},[]," borrows from the insistent language of consumer culture, in which greater abundance and higher-value belongings seem to promise a better life. Shopping and consumption are both private fantasy and public ritual. Against resource precarity, economic inequality and climate anxiety, this promise feels increasingly unstable. Costelloe holds the poignancy of these fantasies alongside the systems of labour, extraction, desire and mythology that produce them.","9c8ad56cdfe6","c7a29a7f9efd",{"_key":155,"markDefs":156,"children":157,"_type":48,"style":49},"9596967aa49c",[],[158],{"text":159,"_key":160,"_type":55,"marks":161},"The artist extends their thanks to Stephen Jones, Eliza Hill, and the team at Stephen Jones Millinery, as well as Andrea Spencer, Erin McCall, and Winona Dodds-Smith.","fae9a4b773ef",[60],"Leo Costelloe","b7b499f4-8550-450f-9e08-81e4c40ba76d","2026-11-05",[166,174],{"markDefs":167,"children":168,"_type":48,"style":49,"_key":173},[],[169],{"text":170,"_key":171,"_type":55,"marks":172},"LEO COSTELLOE (b. 1993, Canberra) is a London-based, Irish-Australian artist whose work explores the transient and sentimental nature of objects in culture. Across sculpture, photography, moving image and writing, Costelloe draws from lexicons of femininity, adornment, material traditions, and biographical detail. Working with glass, silversmithing, hair, flowers and found objects, Costelloe recasts familiar decorative and utilitarian signifiers and reframes objects’ presupposed meanings and unsettle conventional ideas of decoration, utility, gender, and class.","93a3c0a4b4df",[],"c98e5d262a4a",{"_type":48,"style":49,"_key":175,"markDefs":176,"children":177},"1252f538f74c",[],[178,182,186],{"_key":179,"_type":55,"marks":180,"text":181},"59b67267ee86",[],"Costelloe has presented solo exhibitions at NEVEN, London (2024, 2026); The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ, London (2025); Ridley Road Project Space, London (2022); and Kupfer, London (2023). Their work has been featured in group exhibitions at 4COSE, London, curated by Rose Higham-Stainton and Iska Lupton (2026); DKUK, London, curated by Mariana Lemos and Dot Jia (2026); Felix Art Fair, Los Angeles (2026) with Carlye Packer; ZÉRUÌ, London (2026); CAIM, Slane Castle, Ireland (2025); NADA New York (2025); Matt Carey-Williams, London (2024); Studio West Gallery, London (2024); Indigo + Madder, London (2023); The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Leeds (2023); General Assembly, London (2023); Photobook Gallery, London (2023); and Ridley Road Project Space, London (2022). In 2025, Dean’s Bottom published Costelloe’s debut book of prose and photography, ",{"_type":55,"marks":183,"text":184,"_key":185},[60],"Kitchen","c02353d0d2ab",{"_key":187,"_type":55,"marks":188,"text":189},"bb4070153d41",[],". Costelloe graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA (Hons) in Jewellery Design and was awarded the Swarovski Scholar Award in 2020.",{"_type":191,"current":192},"slug","more-and-better",1793945481410]