Richard Saltoun Gallery presents Making New Worlds, Extended , an online exhibition featuring a selection of works on paper by gallery artists Li Yuan-chia, Dom Sylvester Houédard and Greta Schödl on the occasion of Kettle’s Yard exhibition Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia and Friends, open until 18 February 2024.

During his life, pioneering artist Li Yuan-chia was committed to fostering creativity and supporting contemporary practitioners. He founded the LYC Museum & Art Gallery in 1972 in the Cumbrian village of Banks, where he showcased kineticism, land art and video art, together with ancient artefacts and works by British modernists.

The LYC was shaped through friendships and personal affiliations, such as the one with Dom Sylvester Houédard, included in Making New Worlds. In the early '60 Li Yuan-chia lived as a guest of Greta Schödl in Bologna and their friendship resonated with her work in the way it challenges the social constructs of language and suggests alternative forms of expression and interpretation.

Former monk, theologian, historian and artist Dom Sylvester HOUÉDARD (1924-1992) emerged as a cult figure of London's 1960s counter-culture. Born in Guernsey but educated in Rome and Oxford, Houédard worked as a military intelligence officer before becoming a practicing Benedictine priest at the Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire. He wrote extensively on new approaches to spirituality, philosophy and art, becoming a leading authority on the Beat movement. Often referred to simply by his initials dsh, Houedard. has become widely recognised as a leading figure and practitioner of concrete poetry, exploring its links to cybernetics and linguistics. His abstract visual poems were created through the use of an Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter, hence their classification as Typestracts – a combination of the words 'typewriter' and 'abstract.' 

As well as publishing and lecturing at various institutions, Houedard exhibited throughout his lifetime at venues including the Arnolfini, Bristol (1966); Lisson Gallery, London (1967 and 1968); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1972); and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (1971). Exhibitions featuring dsh’s work have been organised posthumously at the Print Center, Philadelphia (2019); South London Gallery (2012); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2009); and Whitechapel Galler and Hayward Gallery, London (2000).

His work is currently included in Making New Worlds, Li Yuan-chia and Friends.