HIDDEN
MESSAGES.
ON 20TH JUNE 2026
DUNCAN WESTON
SENDS A SIGNAL
TO THE FUTURE.
If you look very closely at the bricks in the walls of the Lower Gallery, you will notice that, in one in a hundred bricks, there are fingermarks. These are the fingertips of the workers who would lift the wet clay bricks from the extruders and pile them high like pyramids into the gas fired kilns. A hundred and twenty years later, they are still here, indelibly marked and hidden in the walls.
For a single day, on June 20th, we are launching The Lower Gallery, by inviting international graff conceptualist and general superstar Duncan Weston, aka DUNCAN AGE 53 ¾, to exhibit and create a unique participatory live art installation.
The Lower Gallery, a new contemporary art space, has taken 6 years to build and its completion gives Duncan a unique chance to leave his art within the fabric of the building, a message to a future civilisation. As a leading conceptualist, there is no one better to channel the zeitgeist and pack it up neatly for a hundred year journey.
Duncan will create site specific artworks that celebrate ‘the hidden message’ by embedding his work into the walls and floors of the gallery and after the show it will be sealed into the fabric of the building.
DUNCAN AGED 53 ¾, his signature tagline, will be written large across the back wall of the gallery. For a SINGLE DAY ONLY, visitors will have the chance to add their own name and become part of a historic installation, before layers of insulation, plaster and paint seal the work in perpetuity.
A hidden compartment in the floor will hold an etched stone tablet with another of Duncan’s hidden messages to a future generation. It will be ceremoniously entombed into the floor by the same trades that helped build the gallery itself - A series of relief prints the only evidence it existed.
Duncan will also show paintings that respond to Reading's hidden street graffiti. He will document the street scene and channel it onto canvas, in a kind of psychological archeology.
The Lower Gallery is located in Lower Caversham, near Reading and was completed in 2026. It is a private, not for profit, gallery space that promotes both craftsmanship and conceptualism, as we believe both are essential to true creative expression.
Duncan Weston is an internationally recognised multi disciplinary artist, his practice based heavily in graffiti and autobiographical conceptualism. His standout presentation at “BEYOND THE STREETS’ at the Saatchi Gallery, London was followed recently by ‘I AM HERE’ a solo show at The Horse, Dublin in 2024.
