Toby Rainbird presents EncroChat, his first major solo show, a body of paintings created during his time as the Freelands Studio Fellow (2025–26) in the Painting Department at the University of Brighton.

Hidden networks—systems that both reveal and conceal—have become a central framing device in Rainbird’s practice during his fellowship. His paintings attend to fragments of everyday life that exist within, or slip outside of, tangible and digital systems: intermediary spaces and moments people pass through rather than fully inhabit.

The title EncroChat refers to an encrypted communication network used by organised criminal groups via so-called “encro-devices,” infiltrated by police in 2019. Rather than depicting this material directly, Rainbird uses EncroChat as a conceptual anchor through which to think about concealment, exposure, and peripheral exchange. He draws on the everyday and often banal qualities of these communications—glimpses of ordinary life that coexisted with criminal activity and later became instrumental in identifying and prosecuting its users.

Toby Rainbird (b. 1994, Jersey, Channel Islands) is a British painter based in London. He recently completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art, where he was awarded the Hine Painting Prize. In 2016, he graduated with First-Class Honours in Fine Art from Bath Spa University, receiving the Outstanding Achievement in Fine Art Award. Rainbird was the 2025–26 recipient of the Freelands Studio Fellowship, artist-in-residence at the University of Brighton, and one-half of the curatorial platform Lee Scully.

Exhibition essay: Anna Moss

Photo: M8R8S

Further reading:
Toby Rainbird: One Thing May Hide Another. Essay by Dr Ben Street

Private view: Thursday 5 March, 6–8pm