First Pressings
Exhibition + popup Jazz Kissa listening room & cocktail bar
An exhibition of hand-printed letterpress artwork and record sleeve designs by Oli Bentley of design studio Split
The exhibition will showcase the album artwork and letterpress prints created for a host of national and international musicians and artists, alongside a Jazz Kissa-style vinyl listening room and bar.
The handmade letterpress prints include original work for renowned jazz and instrumental artists including Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Zakir Hussain, John Patitucci, Jasper Høiby, Lionel Loueke, Matthew Bourne, Mark Guiliana and Ben Wendel.
The exhibition of sleeve designs, include box sets and sleeve artwork for Edition Records, The Leaf Label, Island Records and Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records, alongside independent artists — a selection of the over 200 record releases Oli has created album artwork for.
Better known locally as the founder of the People Powered Press, Oli Bentley is an award-winning designer, artist and printmaker. He founded his design studio, Split, whilst studying on the Jazz Degree at Leeds College of Music in 2009. Split predominantly works with creative, cultural and community clients. They work regularly with Edition Records and their roster of incredible international jazz artists; and for The Leaf Label, whose artists have included Craven Faults, Snapped Ankles, Polar Bear, Matthew Bourne and The Comet is Coming, alongside a wide range of other alternative, electronic and experimental artists. They have also worked with Peter Gabriel's Real World Records, Island Records and a wide range of other signed and independent artists.
Alongside Split, Oli has founded the community-led People Powered Press, which (accidentally) holds the world record as the largest letterpress proofing press in the world and works across the north of England to create hand-printed letterpress murals with community groups. The press was created to amplify the voices of local communities, and does so by creating letterpress murals from their words, at a scale not seen anywhere else in the world. It is on the People Powered Press that the letterpress prints in the exhibition have been created.
This exhibition featured as the 2025 EFG London Jazz Festival lead exhibition last summer, and is expanded here to include a host of album box sets and sleeves, as well as Oli’s work from other musical genres.
Print demonstrations by Oli will be run periodically on the press, with guest DJs providing the tunes in the listening room all weekend.
