London's Sid Motion Gallery to Close After a Decade

Sid Motion, the founder and director of her eponymous London gallery, is closing the doors after ten years. The Art Newspaper reported the decision on August 11, 2026, quoting the gallery's own framing of the shutdown: "stopping while ahead." The Art Newspaper

The gallery, based at 12 Felstead Road in London, opened in 2016 and celebrated its tenth anniversary this past June, according to a post on the gallery's Instagram account. Rather than push onward, Motion has chosen to wind things down on her own terms.

A final exhibition is set to open on September 18 and run through October 31, giving visitors one last chance to see the space in action before it shuts for good, as reported by The Art Newspaper.

Motion's gallery has spent the past decade building a programme of contemporary artists from its east London base. Recent exhibitions have included "Ancestors," which ran from March 20 to May 2, 2026, and Graham Silveria Martin's solo show "A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep," which reopened on January 7, 2026, according to the gallery's Instagram. These exhibitions reflect the kind of artist-focused programming the space became known for — solo presentations that gave emerging and mid-career artists room to stretch out.

The closure adds to a shifting landscape for independent and mid-size galleries in London, where rising rents and operating costs have squeezed smaller operators for years. Motion's decision to close voluntarily, after marking a decade milestone, puts a deliberate endpoint on a gallery that could have kept going.

For the artists who showed there and the collectors who followed the programme, the final exhibition this autumn will be the last opportunity to visit the space. After October 31, Sid Motion Gallery joins the list of London galleries that chose their own exit.