Image: Rhodes, London
RHODES Contemporary Art will present American painter Melody Tuttle’s UK solo exhibition debut, ‘You Should Smile More’, in its Project Room in London from 3 to 26 September 2026. The exhibition will bring together new paintings focused on performed femininity, privacy and the quiet rituals of everyday life.
The exhibition will open at RHODES Contemporary Art, 65 Great Portland Street, with a reception on 10 September from 6pm to 8pm. The reception is a separate event within the exhibition schedule. The gallery lists its regular public hours as Tuesday to Friday, 11am to 6pm, and Saturday, noon to 6pm; visits are also available by appointment.
According to the gallery, Tuttle’s new works look at the moments immediately before and after performance: dressing and undressing, concealment and solitude. Her paintings centre on women in intimate, frequently solitary situations, rendered in saturated colours and placed within dreamlike landscapes and interiors that are at once familiar and surreal.
For ‘You Should Smile More’, Tuttle moves further into the domestic interior. Architecture, light and the body become closely connected, while the scenes avoid clear narrative resolutions. One recurring situation described by the gallery shows a woman standing before a mirror, preparing either to enter or leave the privacy of her own space. The figures are presented in suspension, as the boundary between private experience and performed identity becomes less distinct.
The exhibition’s title refers to the familiar instruction ‘You Should Smile More’, which the gallery describes as an apparently innocuous directive carrying expectations about how women should behave and present themselves. Tuttle does not depict the phrase literally. Instead, it functions as an underlying pressure within the paintings, linking questions of external appearance to the private spaces occupied by her subjects.
Light is central to the new series. Windows, doorways and reflected illumination establish shifting boundaries between interior and exterior, exposure and concealment. Warm colour heightens the reality of these settings, while the shaded figures remain absorbed in their own worlds. Tuttle’s women are generally not presented as conventional portraits arranged for the viewer’s gaze; they turn away, look inward or continue with actions that place them outside the demands of performance.
RHODES describes Tuttle as an American painter whose oil paintings explore female identity, self-reliance and the emotional complexities of solitude and connection. Her compositions often include solitary female figures, symbolic animals and vanitas-inspired elements, with fiery sunsets and otherworldly skies transforming everyday rituals into scenes of introspection. Works listed for the exhibition include ‘Just So’, ‘The Good Light’, ‘Something Borrowed’ and ‘All in Good Time’, all dated 2026. ‘The Good Light’ is an oil-on-canvas work measuring 76.2 by 55.9 centimetres. ‘You Should Smile More’ remains on view through 26 September.
