LUAP presents Golden Chips and The Three Bears at London Art Fair 2026, a 244 × 183 cm Painting rooted in family meals, memory and the familiar setting of Steels in Cleethorpes.
Three versions of The Pink Bear sit together in a restaurant booth eating fish and chips. Steels has been part of LUAP’s family life since childhood, associated with birthdays, Christmas celebrations, Friday treats and one of the last meals he shared there with his Grandad.
The Painting stays close to the details of the place. Bread, plates, ketchup, the Formica table and the unusually generous portions of fish are all part of the scene. These everyday details carry the memories of Steels and the family rituals built around going there. The subject is deliberately ordinary, built around a meal, a local restaurant and time spent together.
Memories of LUAP’s childhood home also enter the Painting through its surface. Abstract washes and ghosted wallpaper patterns appear behind the restaurant scene, bringing different places and periods of his life into the same image. Muted greens and golds move through the background, while layers of hot pink and magenta build the texture of The Pink Bear suits. Tightly rendered details sit alongside looser areas of paint, bringing different layers of memory into the same surface.
The three versions of The Pink Bear change the figure’s familiar position within LUAP’s work. Instead of appearing alone, they sit shoulder-to-shoulder around the table. The grouping introduces family, support and conversation into a figure more often associated with solitude, while the familiarity of the restaurant keeps the scene grounded in a particular place and experience.
Created in 2025 and presented at London Art Fair 2026, Golden Chips and The Three Bears forms part of Feels Like Home, an ongoing body of work exploring memory, belonging and the ordinary places shaped by repetition, ritual and personal history.
“Fish & Chips was always the Friday treat, but Steels was for special occasions. We would pile in as a family, order the jumbo fish and chips and it felt like the world stopped for a bit. I wanted to hold that warmth and togetherness, and the way those moments stay alive inside you. The Pink Bear creates a space for that feeling, that is open enough for other people to step into.” LUAP
