We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things
Theodore Ereira-Guyer and Jandyra Waters
Elizabeth Xi Bauer, Exmouth Market
10th October – 23rd November 2025
Private View: 9th October 2025
Elizabeth Xi Bauer is pleased to present We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things, a two-person exhibition bringing together works by Jandyra Waters (b. Brazil, 1921–2025), who was considered one of the pioneers of abstractionism in Brazil, and contemporary artist Theodore Ereira-Guyer (b. UK, 1990). The exhibition stages a cross-temporal dialogue between artists whose practices are separated by decades but aligned by notions of time, scale, and geographic resonance.
The curatorial premise of this exhibition draws attention to the affinities between both artists at important moments in their careers. All but one of Waters’ paintings on show were produced in the early 1960s, when she was in her early forties. Ereira-Guyer’s body of work, by turn, was made throughout 2025, as he approaches his late thirties – in a similar stage of their lives. Waters’ paintings embody a process of inquiry rather than resolution—an approach that connects deeply with Ereira-Guyer, who also works through intuition and risk rather than predetermined outcomes. His new works are responses to Waters’ surfaces, colour palette, and sense of animated movement, leading him to work with new material considerations for this exhibition. We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things presents an equal number of works by each artist, closely matched in scale, to further underscore this conversation through proximity rather than contrast.
Waters’ and Ereira-Guyer’s practices are inflected by transnational experience. Waters lived in the UK for three years as part of a post-war humanitarian initiative, where she studied, exhibited, formed poignant relationships, and married, all of which shaped her artistic voice. In turn, Ereira-Guyer continues to sustain active ties with Brazil through consistent residencies and exhibitions. He has a passion and curiosity for the country, making his dialogue with Waters both material and geographical. For example, in 2017 Ereira-Guyer completed a residency at Pivô, and in 2022 he participated in both a residency and an exhibition through The Bridge Project’s Time Lapse, all of which were in São Paulo. Ereira-Guyer exhibited in Elizabeth Xi Bauer’s group exhibition Warm Sun Cold Rain in 2023, in São Paulo, with several local artists; these experiences greatly influenced his practice, including the artist collecting and incorporating organic material, such as seeds, bringing elements from his surroundings into the timeless space of his works.
The smaller works in the exhibition, made within a style broadly associated with Tachisme, mark a transitional stage in Jandyra Waters’ practice. In these canvases, she begins to abandon an earlier flirtation with figuration—the entry point for many artists—and turns instead toward a more personal language. Their coarse, spatula-worked surfaces obscure enigmatic shapes, distorted forms, and a darker palette, embodying a raw, investigative energy that reveals Waters’ search for her own voice. From this period of experimentation emerges the magnificent large diptych of 1967, anchoring the presentation. Executed in the vibrant organic-geometric style that would define her career, the diptych embodies the new voice forged through her dwellings with Tachisme abstraction. Together, these works illuminate a pivotal moment of transition in Waters’ trajectory—an evolution that resonates with the exploratory phase in which Ereira-Guyer now finds himself.
Theodore Ereira-Guyer’s recent works—etched plaster layered with coloured glass—mark a bold expansion of his practice. They extend his long-standing ideas regarding memory, material, and landscape, while working with reactions to light and a sculptural dimension. This is his most extensive showing to date of the glass-and-plaster works, which evolved from his earlier large-scale etchings on paper, paper stitched to fabric, and into plaster. Ereira-Guyer first introduced glass into his practice in the 2024 Sleeping Lions solo exhibition at Elizabeth Xi Bauer, a turning point that opened new possibilities in surface, luminosity, and atmosphere. The interplay of plaster and glass produces shifting, refracted images that echo the elusive quality of memory. Irregularities in the handmade glass—sourced from Germany’s Glashütte Lamberts—act like lenses, blurring what lies beneath and heightening the tension between clarity and opacity.
Ereira-Guyer describes these works as capturing “twilight, when light dances on the tops of trees, a moment of anticipation before night falls.” He further describes this as ‘’[It’s] a time when the mind begins to wander, and imagination takes flight. The title Nameless patience refers to the end of the day, the quiet expectancy of night, and the wait for that fleeting magic to begin. And then, before we realise it, it’s gone.”
We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things foregrounds process, transition, and focal points in artistic careers—privileging dialogue over statement, emergence over conclusion. It situates Waters and Ereira-Guyer within a shared lineage of experimentation that traverses continents and generations. This pairing underscores how formative stages of artistic practice can hold their own radical power. By relating Waters’ developmental works alongside Ereira-Guyer’s evolving use of glass, the exhibition emphasises artistic becoming rather than legacy: the value of works that chart risk and discovery, and what could come next. This exhibition is not only about influence but about possibility: how past practices can be reimagined as spaces of unfolding, and how the exploratory might carry the most profound resonance for the present and the future.
Notes to Editors
Theodore Ereira-Guyer (born 1990, London, UK) lives and works between London, UK, and Portugal.
Ereira-Guyer studied at Central St. Martins, London, in 2011. He was awarded the WIP Prize in 2013, from the Royal College of Art, London, graduating with an MA in Fine Art: Print, in 2014. The same year, he was awarded the Helen Chadwick Award for multidisciplinary artists.
Ereira-Guyer’s work has been included in exhibitions worldwide, including the Palazzo Pesaro Papafava, Italy, as part of the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. In 2025, he was selected to participate in Whitechapel Gallery’s esteemed Art Icon Gala, exhibiting alongside a selection of artists recognised for their contributions to the advancement of contemporary art. His works are included in international private and public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the British Museum, London; The Lookout Collection, London; Royal College of Art Archive, London; Tate Special Collections and Tate Archive, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal; the Millennium BCP Foundation, Lisbon; MACAM – Museu de Arte Contemporânea Armando Martins, Lisbon; and the Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA. This year, 2025, the Government Art Collection, London, acquired a work from Sleeping Lions – Ereira-Guyer’s solo exhibition at Elizabeth Xi Bauer – for inclusion in its permanent collection.
The Thicket, in 2022, was Ereira-Guyer’s first solo exhibition at Elizabeth Xi Bauer. Concurrently, The Bridge Project, São Paulo, showcased Time Lapse (2022), a selection of works by Ereira-Guyer created in Brazil and Europe. Theodore Ereira-Guyer and Sam Llewellyn-Jones: Unwinding, presented by Elizabeth Xi Bauer and Umbigo Magazine, opened at Galeria Sá da Costa, Lisbon, in 2023. That same year, Elizabeth Xi Bauer held a duo exhibition with Ereira-Guyer and Thiago Barbalho in their Deptford gallery location; Phantom Dance (2023) included multiple double-sided stacks of large format etchings by Ereira-Guyer which hung from the gallery ceiling to form a false wall. Additionally, in 2023, Ereira-Guyer exhibited in a collaboration between The Bridge Project and Elizabeth Xi Bauer in both Brussels and São Paulo.
In September 2024, Elizabeth Xi Bauer presented Sleeping Lions, Theodore Ereira-Guyer’s latest solo exhibition with the gallery. The show comprised an expansive selection of new works by Ereira-Guyer that build on his longstanding exploration of printmaking. A printed exhibition publication of the same name was released to accompany the show, featuring an essay by Tom Jeffreys.
Jandyra Waters (1921–2025. Born in Sertãozinho, São Paulo, Brazil)
Jandyra Waters began her studies at County Council Art School in Sussex, UK, in 1947. After returning to São Paulo, Waters pursued Art History at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1951. Continuing her studies at Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado, São Paulo in 1952.
With an artistic career spanning over 60 years, Waters first exhibited her work in 1957 at the VI edition of Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna, (Paulista Salon of Modern Art), in São Paulo, Brazil. A prominent art salon held in São Paulo, showcasing modern and contemporary Brazilian artists, historically organised by institutions, including Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo (MAM-SP) and the Secretaria de Cultura do Estado de São Paulo. Waters continued to exhibit in the Salão Paulista de Arte Moderna through to 1968.
Waters’ work was additionally included in the Salão de Arte Contemporânea, (Contemporary Art Salon) Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, in 1965 and every edition until 1969, and the Bienal
Nacional de Artes Plásticas, (National Biennial of Plastic Arts), Salvador, Brazil, in both 1966 and 1968. In 1967, Waters participated in the 9ª Bienal Internacional de São Paulo, (9th International Biennial of São Paulo), by Fundação Bienal, in São Paulo.
Exhibiting extensively across Brazil, Waters’ first solo exhibition was held in 1963 at Galeria Aremar, Campinas, São Paulo. Recently, Waters has exhibited in solo exhibitions notably, Jandyra Waters: 104 years, Club Athletico Paulistano, São Paulo, Brazil, (2025); Galeria Mapa, São Paulo, (2019); Galeria Sancovsky, São Paulo, (2018); and in a retrospective titled Jandyra Waters – Rhythm of Time at Almeida & Dale, São Paulo, in 2015.
Waters’ artworks have been included recently in group exhibitions, including Five Essays on MASP- Geometries, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, (2025); Mapa das Mulheres, (Map of Women), Galeria MaPa, São Paulo, (2024); Metamorphoses and Distances, Galeria Estação, São Paulo, (2024); Continuities, 2000 Years of Female Art in South America, Embassy of Brazil, London, UK, (2023); and Our North Is The South, Gomide & Co, São Paulo, (2021).
Waters’ works are in various collections across Brazil including, Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC-USP), Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, and Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo.
Jandyra Waters passed away earlier this year at the age of 103. Alongside her visual art practice, Waters also published three haiku poetry books, Pedras Nuas (1974), Desvendador (1977), and Ritmo do Tempo (Rhythm of Time) (2001), the latter of which informed the retrospective exhibition of her works in 2015, at Almeida & Dale, São Paulo.
Theodore Ereira-Guyer and Jandyra Waters: We Lost Lots of Beautiful Things will run from 10th October – 23rd November 2025, at Elizabeth Xi Bauer’s Exmouth Market location, open Wednesday through to Sunday, 12 – 6 pm or by appointment. We are pleased to announce that Elizabeth Xi Bauer’s Exmouth Market gallery has extended opening hours, open Wednesday to Sunday, from 12-6 pm, extended to 8 pm on Thursdays. A Private View will be held on 9th October 2025, 6 – 8 pm.
This exhibition is curated by Maria do Carmo M. P. de Pontes.
