SHARP EDGES
BIJAN AMINI-ALAVIJEH
CHARLOTTE SAINT CULLEN
IAN JACKSON
1 November - 31 November 2025
Opening Event - 1 November, 2pm - 5pm
Exhibition then open daily 2 November - 31 November 2025
Threshold presents Sharp Edges, a group exhibition of new work by Yorkshire based artists Bijan Amini-Alavijeh (Wakefield), Charlotte Saint Cullen (Leeds) and Ian Jackson (Leeds). Curated by Julia McKinlay.
Sharp Edges explores the direct relationship metalworking has to drawing. The three artists have distinct practices engaging with a range of themes from abstraction, ornamentation and geometry (Amini-Alavijeh) to care, healing and repair (Cullen) and the histories and specific languages of materials and processes (Jackson). Connecting all three artists is a tactile and processual approach to working with metals, employing cutting, engraving and etching techniques to alter surface and form. This exhibition and the accompanying publication will draw connections between their manipulation of metal with the act of drawing.
All of the previous exhibitions at Threshold have incorporated metal in some way - to make work suitable for outdoors the materials need to be hardy and weather resistant and metal is a natural choice. Sharp Edges explicitly draws attention to this material, not as a practical solution, but as a substance that adds its own language/content to sculpture and allows the artist to draw in space.
Threshold Editions
The artists will all be producing editions for sale and an accompanying publication titled ‘Sharp Edges’ will be available to purchase through Threshold Editions. We are aiming to launch these during the opening weekend on November. Keep an eye on our instagram for news on their release. 👀️
Threshold Editions publishes affordable sculpture editions and publications by artists working with sculpture and generates income for future exhibitions at Threshold.
About the artists
Bijan Amini-Alavijeh
Bijan Amini-Alavijeh’s practice investigates how we perceive and interpret space, engaging with abstraction, ornamentation, nature, and architecture. Through sculpture, he works with materials that challenge notions of permanence and value, reflecting on how meaning is inherited, forgotten, intuited, rediscovered, or misinterpreted. His practice seeks to reshape our understanding of these elements to help us reconsider spirituality, mortality, and our relationship with nature and geometry in the 21st century. Initiated through drawing and developed using intuitive, repetitive processes, his work often builds into large-scale immersive displays. He favours accessible and less formal materials such as plaster, paper, wire, metal and wood, which contrast with the refinement often associated with architectural references. These materials allow for a tactile immediacy that invites close engagement.
Recent exhibitions include: ‘a glimmer’, The Art House, Wakefield (2024); ‘Harmony is Central’, The Ridings Centre, Wakefield (2022); ‘Material Matters’, Sunny Bank Mills, Leeds (2021); ‘Capital P’, Capital ISIN, PISIN presents, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (2017). Amini-Alavijeh was a YSI Sculpture Network artist in 2022, and a member of the PANIC! Steering Group at The Tetley 2021-2022. In 2019, Amini-Alavijeh was an Engagement Artist with Yorkshire Sculpture International and partnered with the Henry Moore Institute and Meeting Point Leeds.
︎ @baalavijeh
Charlotte Saint Cullen
Charlotte Saint Cullen is an artist, academic and organiser whose sculptural practice resonates around forms of care, healing and repair, coalescing within the legacies which make such acts necessary.
Cullen was Axis Fellow 2023-24, and Yorkshire Sculpture International Associate 2021-22. They have completed public commissions, most recently for Leeds2023, undertaken residencies, notably YYT Museum, Shanghai, China (2019) and exhibited widely including solo exhibitions with Blank_ Leeds (2022), Patriot Hall, Edinburgh (2021) and Leeds Central Library (2021), and group exhibitions including Hypha Gallery, London (2024-25), Gloam, Sheffield (2024), Leeds Art Gallery (2023). In 2023 they received funding from Arts Council England, Henry Moore Foundation, AN, amongst others.
Cullen completed their Practice-led PhD with the Centre for Sculptural Thinking at the University of Huddersfield in 2019, funded by the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and University of Huddersfield scholarship. They are a lecturer in Fine Art at York St John University, where they founded and curate Vessel gallery.
︎ @_harlotte_ullen
Ian Jackson
Ian Jacksons’s work combines video, drawing, personal writing and sculpture to follow dislocated objects and materials. His work builds on these collected materials, researching and finding ways to unpick their specific languages and processes. Works often involve collaborations across disciplines with other artists, researchers and specialist makers to unravel the different physical shifts, cultural changes, and boundaries that materials can become signifiers of over time.
Ian Jackson is based in Leeds, and recent exhibitions include: ‘Leeds Artists Show’, Leeds Art Gallery (2023); ‘Extruded Thoughts’, Gerald Moore Gallery, London (2022); ‘Rhinoceros’, Haarlem Artspace, Wirksworth (2022); Routes North, Messums Gallery, Harrogate (2022); Material Matters, Sunny Bank Mills, Leeds (2021); ‘EBC024’, East Bristol Contemporary, Bristol (2020); ‘Spolia, Serf, Leeds (2020). Ian has contributed to publications such as ‘Northern Formations', a publication with Corridor8 (2022), was part of the YSI Sculpture Network in 2022, and the PANIC! Steering Group with The Tetley in 2021.
︎ @irjackson