Simon Berger Brings His Glass Portraits to London This Week: Fractured Presence Opens at HOFA Gallery
London is about to get a rare, in-person encounter with an artist many people know first through screens.
On Thursday 5 March 2026, HOFA Gallery opens “Fractured Presence”, the first solo presentation of Simon Bergerat the gallery, with a Private View marking the start of the exhibition’s short run from 5 to 19 March 2026.
Fracture as form, resilience as mood
There is an emotional tension to Berger’s process that feels rig that an image can be both fragile and monumental, and that strength can be found in what is visibly held together. These portraits do not ask to be decoded quickly. They ask you to look again.
In a culture of endless image circulation, that request feels quietly radical.
This is exactly where Fractured Presence lands its point: portraiture not as a static likeness, but as s for time. Berger’s figures, often female, resist the traditional polishing of the face into an ideal. Here, identity is constructed through rupture. The cracks do not “damage” the subject, they articulate her.
They are neither polished nor softened
Berger’s portraits are made by striking tempered safety glass with a hammer, building a face from controlled fracture rather than line. It is a technique he developed and refined over the last decade, turning impact into a kind of drawing, and destruction into precision.
The glass catches light, then drops it; lines appear, dissolve, and re-form as you move. In reproduction, the image reads as resolved. In person, it behaves like an event, activated by distance, reflection, and the viewer’s position.
Why to go this week
If you have only seen Berger’s work online, this is the moment to meet it properl brief, the material is literal glass, and the experience lives in the shifting relationship between surface and light.
View exhibition details at HOFA: Simon Berger | Fractured Presence
Explore the artist’s wider practice: simonbergerart.com
Hours (listed): Mon to Fri 10:00–19:00 Saturday 11:00 - 18:00
Sunday 12:00 - 17:00
Press enquiries: info@TheHouseofFineArt.com