Contemporary Art Society Acquisitions & Art Consultancy
April 2023 – March 2024
Contemporary Art Society
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Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. If proper acknowledgement has not been made, please contact the Contemporary Art Society. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without first seeking the written permission of the copyright holders and of the Contemporary Art Society. Images cannot be reproduced without prior permission from the Contemporary Art Society.
Date of publication: July 2024
Edited by Caroline Douglas, Jordan Kaplan, Christine Takengny and Victoria Kosasie. With thanks to all the curators from CAS Member Museums who contributed content and texts, and to Alison Wormleighton for proofreading and copy-editing.
Designed by Hyperkit
Printed by Park Communications
Cover image: Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Dreams II (mae), 2023
Crayon, pencil and oil on linen, 117 x 123 cm (stretched)
© Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Goodman Gallery UK
Future Fund
Museums Receiving Artworks
Map of Member Museums
Special Projects
— Collections Fund at Frieze
— Special Partnership with Henry Moore Foundation and Cathy Wills
The Contemporary Art Society Partnership with the National Gallery, London Griffin Award
Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary Art Society Acquisitions Scheme
Foreword
In the financial year 2023–24, we have placed 165 works by 150 artists in 37 collections in our Museum Membership. The total value of these works is £987,829. In a year defined by terrible conflict across the globe and financial distress in almost all sectors of cultural life in the UK, it is with the deepest gratitude that we thank everyone who has supported the mission of the Contemporary Art Society throughout this last year. We are conscious of the sustained support of so many individuals whose understanding of the visual arts community in the UK underpins their determination to do something to help. Thank you, once again, for the trust you place in us to use these funds to the greatest effect.
We have been proud to welcome two more Member Museums this year. The National Glass Centre in Sunderland is a centre of excellence for contemporary glass art and the only one of our Member Museums to have this specialism. The Lightbox in Woking is the only Member in Surrey. Both institutions face especially challenging situations at the moment, and it is our hope that being part of the CAS network will help support their resilience.
New members of the Fine Art Acquisitions Advisory Committee joined us this financial year, and our thanks go to writer and critic Hettie Judah; Osei Bonsu, curator of international art at Tate Modern; and Sarah Brown, director of the Lightbox in Woking, for their time and wise counsel.
The Fitzwilliam Museum rejoined CAS in 2022 after an absence of some 26 years, and it was wonderful to work with them on three important acquisitions through the Collections Fund at Frieze the following year. All seven institutions that have received works through this scheme, along with all the members of the current committee, were invited to an inspiring round table event at 10 Downing Street in October 2023, hosted by the Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. As Béatrice Lupton steps down after co-chairing the committee for the last seven years, it was an apt moment to review the
Patron trip to Ghana: Studio of Frederick Ebenezer Okai, Kumasi, November 2023
long-term impact of the acquisitions on audiences, collections and the professional development of the curators involved. What emerged from the discussion was a profound sense of the multifaceted importance of making these major acquisitions for museums: how they inspire confidence and ambition to develop collections further, as well as acting to bring the most current and pertinent work to the museums’ audiences. We are delighted that Liesl Fichardt has agreed to co-chair the committee with trustee Nicola Blake in 2024.
In 2023, our partnership with the National Gallery’s Artist in Residence programme saw Céline Condorelli take over Room 31 of the gallery with an installation titled Pentimenti (The Corrections), which was on view from September through to January 2024. Among paintings by Nicolas Poussin and the Le Nain brothers, a dramatic printed textile work was suspended from the ceiling, and a printed carpet with sound installations was situated underneath it. In what must have been a first at the National Gallery, visitors were invited to lie on their backs to contemplate the work. It was a dramatic example of how contemporary art can alter the experience of well-loved historical collections. Thanks to the support of our trustee Anna Yang, and her husband, Joe Schull, the carpet and an accompanying print by the artist enter the permanent collection at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. The next Artist in Residence through this partnership is Katrina Palmer, and the partner museum is Touchstones Rochdale. Palmer’s exhibition at the National Gallery will open in the autumn of 2024.
Tate Britain’s hugely successful exhibition Women in Revolt! opened in November 2023 to universally glowing reviews. It was especially pleasing to see a number of recent CAS gifts featured in the selection, including Mary Kelly’s film Antepartum, 1973, which was donated to Brighton Museum & Art Gallery through Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary Art Society (VNXXCAS) in 2019; a large painting by Jacqueline Morreau titled If Mary Came to Greenham, 1983, which was donated through CAS to The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry as a gift of the artist’s estate; and the Love, Sex and Romance works from 1984 by Rita Keegan that were donated to Tate through the inaugural Ada Award, supported by Helen Faccenda.
Tanya Harrod, Alison Britton, Sarah Griffin and Jareh Das continue to offer their invaluable advice for our craft purchasing schemes. In the second year of the Griffin Award for craft, a major new work is being commissioned from the glass artist Chris Day for the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Having visited the gallery a number of times, Day has devised a large-scale piece that responds both to the architecture of the gallery and the history of its collections in this maritime city, with so many links to the Empire. To fabricate the work, Day is using the facilities at the glass department of the Wolverhampton School of Art. The work will go on display in Liverpool in the autumn of 2024.
Penny Mason and her late husband, Richard Sykes, were members of the Contemporary Art Society together for over 30 years. Not only great supporters, they were staunch friends to successive directors of the Society. Through the autumn of 2023, we worked with Penny Mason to place over a hundred works from their collection with 20 Member Museums. As you will see from the pages of this book, the collection included painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, prints and ceramics. Penny and Richard were also collectors of artists’ books,
and some 30 of these have been donated to the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds, where they complement an already important collection of artists’ books that are cared for by the Rare Books department of the Brotherton Library. There, they will be available to scholars in perpetuity and will be used for occasional temporary displays within the library.
In November, we were hosted by Gilbert and George at their studio and new Gilbert & George Centre in Spitalfields for a memorable Artist’s Table fundraiser. It was a privilege to share an evening with these icons of the British art scene. That same month, a large group of patrons travelled to Ghana, visiting studios and galleries in Accra before travelling north to Tamale. There, we were welcomed by Ibrahim Mahama and given a never-to-be-forgotten tour of his extensive projects, including the Savannah Centre and Red Clay studios. Following on from the purchase of his work at Frieze the preceding year, the trip was an opportunity to understand the burgeoning contemporary scene in Ghana in greater depth. We gained a vivid insight into the artist-led initiatives that are the most dynamic part of the ecology in the country, where there is little or no state support for the sector.
At the end of 2023, Marco Compagnoni stepped down as Chair after leading the board of trustees through an extraordinary six years of its history. Marco was an exemplary Chair, a tireless advocate for the mission of the Contemporary Art Society and someone we all count as a friend. We record our enormous gratitude to Marco for all that he did during his time with us.
Robert Suss, Chair
Caroline Douglas, Director
Remember us in your will
In 1910 the Contemporary Art Society was inaugurated by Roger Fry and six other individuals largely from the Bloomsbury Group, including Lady Ottoline Morrell, the great patron and hostess of young emerging modern artists. As we approach our 114th anniversary, we continue the legacy of our founders by championing today’s most exciting artists.
We want to ensure that our core mission – to donate the best new art and craft to museums around the UK – continues for many years to come. In 2019 we launched the CAS Future Fund, to support the future of our highly successful museum acquisitions programmes.
You can be part of the CAS Future Fund by remembering the Contemporary Art Society in your will. Every legacy gift we receive will be invested in the CAS Future Fund to support future museum acquisitions, making a vital difference to contemporary art and creating enduring support for new generations of artists and museum audiences.
You can also choose to support the CAS Future Fund during your lifetime.
The CAS Future Fund will ensure:
• the best artists of our time are discovered and nurtured
Your gift will ensure that the Contemporary Art Society can continue its great track record of spotting talent ahead of the curve, and accelerating artists’ careers by placing their work in public collections, thereby giving them the public endorsement they deserve at a critical moment.
• the best contemporary art is placed in public collections for future generations
Your gift will also ensure that the Contemporary Art Society can continue to donate work to important museums and galleries across the UK, many of which would not be able to collect any contemporary art without our support.
For more information on the CAS Future Fund, or to request a brochure, please contact Dida Tait, Head of External Relations: dida@contemporaryartsociety.org 020 7017 8400. All enquiries are treated in strict confidence.
Thank you for considering the future of contemporary art in the UK.
Museums Receiving Artworks
Aberdeen Art Gallery
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford
The Atkinson, Southport
Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery
Bradford District Museums and Galleries, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery
Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre
Danum Gallery, Library and Museum, Doncaster
The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library, Preston
The Hepworth Wakefield
Huddersfield Art Gallery, Kirklees Museums and Galleries
The Hunterian, University of Glasgow
Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum
Leeds Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery
Mead Gallery, University of Warwick Art Collection
The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
Museum & Art Swindon
National Maritime Museum, London
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery
Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM), Exeter
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Sheffield Museums Trust (Graves Gallery & Millenium Gallery)
Southampton City Art Gallery
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens
Touchstones Rochdale
Towner Eastbourne
Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle
The Usher Gallery, Lincoln
Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
York Art Gallery
7
5
2
1
Member Museums
30
31 The New Art Gallery Walsall 32 The Potteries Museum &
Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
37 Rugby Art Gallery & Museum
& the Humber
38 Bradford District Museums and Galleries, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery
39 Danum Gallery, Library and Museum, Doncaster
40 Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
41 The Hepworth Wakefield
42 Huddersfield Art Gallery
43 Leeds Art Gallery
44 Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
45 Sheffield Museums Trust (Graves Gallery & Millennium Gallery)
46 The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
47 York Art Gallery North East
48 Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University
49 Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
50 Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA)
51 The Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead
52 Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens
53 Sunderland National Glass Centre North West
54 Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal
55 The Atkinson Gallery, Southport
56 Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery
57 Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre
58 Gallery Oldham
59 Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool
60 The Harris Museum, Art Gallery and Library, Preston
61 Manchester Art Gallery
62 Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster Arts
63 Touchstones Rochdale
64 Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle
65 University of Salford Art Collection
66 Victoria Gallery & Museum, University of Liverpool
67 Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool
68 The Whitworth, Manchester
69 Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead Scotland
70 Aberdeen Art Gallery
71 Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Glasgow Museums
72 The Hunterian, University of Glasgow
73 The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum
74 National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh
75 The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
76 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Wales
77 Amgueddfa Cymru –Museum Wales
78 Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
Sunderland National Glass Centre
The Lightbox, Woking
Special Projects
‘The poetic and powerful art making by three outstanding international women artists greatly resonates across the collections at the Fitzwilliam Museum. I can see many opportunities in which we can display these pieces in both our fine art and object-based galleries to create inspiring visual and material connections as well as stimulate important conversations that examine the past to speak about now.’
Habda Rashid, Senior Curator Modern & Contemporary Art
The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Since 2012, the Contemporary Art Society’s Collections Fund at Frieze has supported the acquisition of significant contemporary works for Contemporary Art Society Member Museums across the UK, drawing together the knowledge and experience of private collectors with that of museum curators.
This year the Collections Fund at Frieze was awarded to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The museum acquired distinct work by three women artists, Grada Kilomba, Goshka Macuga and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum. Their art practice explores global histories from post-colonial perspectives, aligning with the museum’s extensive collection, which spans from antiquity to contemporary times.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Collections Fund at Frieze, 2023/24
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum The Dream II (mae) 2023
Crayon pencil and oil on linen 117 x 123 cm
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum’s practice encompasses drawing, painting, installation and animation to explore mythology, geology and theories on the nature of the universe. Sunstrum creates narrative landscapes that simultaneously appear futuristic and ancient, shifting between representational and fantastical depictions of volcanic, subterranean, cosmological and precipitous landscapes. The Dream II (mae) pictures a double portrait of the artist’s alter ego Asme, a consistent figure symbolising a testing site to explore ideas amidst the absence of representation of the black female body in art history. The double figures in the painting are each cradling eggs in the palms of their hands. The semantics of
the egg – speaking to fertility and unhatched potential – ascribes a powerful sense of what might come. Thus, in The Dream II (mae), the artist communicates desires for the visibility of women of colour as well as a profound sense of potential.
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum (b. 1980, Mochudi, Botswana) lives and works in Den Haag, Netherlands. Solo exhibitions include Bloomberg SPACE, London (2023); Galerie Lelong, New York (2022); Goodman Gallery, New York (2021); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Tiwani Contemporary, London (both 2019) and ICTAF, Cape Town (2018). Group exhibitions include MOCA Toronto; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (all 2021); El Espacio 23, Miami; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (all 2020); WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; and Kunsthaus Zürich (both 2019).
Goshka Macuga
Rabindranath Tagore (Blue) 2022
Jesmonite and plaster 62 x 25 x 30 cm
Edition 1 of 5
Cross-disciplinary artist Goshka Macuga simultaneously assumes the role of curator, historian and designer to question historiography, political structures and the pressing issues of our time. Rabindranath Tagore (Blue) includes a plaster head of Indian polymath and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore as a flower vase. The work relates to Macuga’s larger series of 73 bronze sculptures, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation (2016), which depicts historical figures in imaginary dialogue across cultural and emporal divides. Regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-century India, Tagore, known for his experimental outdoor
school Visva-Bharati, was highly influential in the cross-cultural exchange between India and the West. For Macuga, Tagore’s partial colour-vision deficiency, and how this impacted his writing and his art, are of central interest.
Goshka Macuga (b. 1967, Warsaw, Poland) is based in London. Solo exhibitions include Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2022); Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich; MUSAC, León (both 2021); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover; Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai (both 2019); Neues Museum, Nuremberg (2018) and Fondazione Prada, Milan (2016). Group shows include Fondazione Prada, Milan; Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry (all 2023); Nottingham Contemporary; Kate MacGarry, London; Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz (all 2022); Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2021); and Kunsthalle Tübingen, Tübingen (2020).
Grada Kilomba
Untitled Poem (one sorrow, one revolution) 2022
Charcoaled wood, engraved poem, gold leaf 24 x 24 x 86 cm AP of Edition of 1 + 1AP
Grada Kilomba draws on memory, trauma, gender and post-colonialism to interrogate concepts of knowledge, power and violence. Her multifaceted practice spans performance, video, sculptural installation and sound pieces, all serving as conduits for decolonial storytelling. Extracted from her installation 18 Verses (2022), which consists of 18 charcoaled wood blocks engraved with poems by the artist in gold leaf, Untitled Poem (one sorrow, one revolution) emerges as a standalone piece. On a charcoal block, ‘one sorrow, one revolution’ is engraved in Yoruba, Kimbundu, Cape Verde Creole, Portuguese, Syrian Arabic and English, further exploring cyclical violence and the relationship
between narrative, power and repetition. Untitled Poem (one sorrow, one revolution) continues Kilomba’s unique practice of storytelling and performance, which intentionally disrupts the proverbial ‘White Cube’ through a new and urgent decolonial language and imagery.
Grada Kilomba (b. 1968, Lisbon, Portugal) is based in Berlin. Recent solo shows include Goodman Gallery, London (2023); Norval Foundation, Cape Town; Somerset House, London (both 2022); Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; Amant Foundation, New York; McLaughlin Gallerie, Berlin (all 2021). Group exhibitions include Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin; Palais de Tokyo, Paris (both 2021); Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne (both 2020); and Museo Nacional de Arte, La Paz (2019).
Dominique White
Outcasts of the Nations of the Earth 2019
Kaolin clay, iron, cowrie shells, hand woven sisal nets
350 x 80 cm
The Contemporary Art Society has acquired a sculpture from Dominique White for Leeds Art Gallery through a special partnership between the Henry Moore Foundation and the Contemporary Art Society, supported by Cathy Wills. The fouryear scheme supports Leeds Art Gallery and The Hepworth Wakefield , which are both in Yorkshire, the UK centre for sculpture.
Dominique White is an artist working in sculpture and installation. The sea is an important ongoing source for White’s work, with the histories and myths it holds, including tales of resistance and protest. White’s own family history of migration from the Caribbean to the UK grounds this connection and combines with the artist’s interests in theories of Black Subjectivity, Afro-futurism/ pessimism and Hydrarchy, which lead to White’s idea of creating new worlds for ‘Blackness’.
Tension and fragility are present in White’s work, which combine found nautical objects such as ropes, nets, chains and fragments of sails with kaolin clay and iron. They create sculptures heavy with symbolism which interact with the gallery space whether placed on the floor, coming away from the walls or suspended from the ceiling, as in the case of Outcasts of the Nations of the Earth. Sometimes immersed in the sea so its residue becomes part of the work, White’s use of materials means the work shifts as kaolin disintegrates and is reapplied or raw iron elements change according to the environment. Her sculptures are both physical and ghostly, alluding to maritime histories including enslavement, and the power dynamics between land and sea.
White’s work feels especially relevant today, resonating strongly in a time when passage by sea for individuals seeking refuge comes at such a high cost. Her exploration of histories fraught with stories of violence and oppression are equally applicable in the contemporary.
Dominique White (b. 1993, London, UK) is based in Essex, UK and Marseille, France and often works nomadically. Recent solo exhibitions include VEDA, Florence; ICA, Philadelphia, USA (both 2024); Kunsthalle Münster, Germany (2023/24); ART CITY, Bologna, Italy ( 2023); Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK; UKS, Oslo, Norway (both 2021). Group shows include Warwick Arts Centre, UK (2023/24); Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK (2019). White won the 9th edition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2023.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through a Special Partnership with the Henry Moore Foundation, supported by Cathy Wills, 2023/24
The Contemporary Art Society Partnership with the National Gallery, London
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM), Exeter
Céline Condorelli
Bulk: Everlasting Colour
2023
Printed carpet
640 x 340 cm
Opposite, top
Pentimenti (0751) 2023
Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag
54.5 x 39 cm
Edition 2 of 2
Opposite, bottom
Céline Condorelli navigates the boundaries of public and private domains, art and function, as well as labour and leisure to reimagine conceptions of culture and society. Within institutional settings and public spaces, Condorelli emphasises the material and temporal nature of exhibiting through sculpture, architecture and installation. Her extensive body of work explores alternative modes of communal living and working, addressing notions of public space, the commons and property relations. Condorelli’s practice continuously explores the less explicit elements that compose the structures through which individuals encounter the world – be they cultural, economic, material, social or political – the apparatuses of visibility that are often taken for granted, and which the artist describes as ‘support structures’. Condorelli’s interventions forge new ways to engage with culture, seeking to reintegrate art into everyday life through a nuanced and embodied understanding.
As the National Gallery’s third Artist in Residence in 2022–23, Condorelli created an immersive installation in Gallery 31. Titled Pentimenti, the installation reflected her year-long access to the archives and architecture of both the National Gallery and the partner museum, the Royal Albert Memorial Museums (RAMM) in Exeter. Among masterpieces by Claude Poussin and the Le Nain brothers, visitors were invited to lie down on her carpet work and contemplate the printed textile
suspended from the ceiling, all the while taking in the sounds of everyday life in Trafalgar Square emanating from the ventilation grilles in the floor. Fascinated by the scientific research that is routinely undertaken at the gallery, Condorelli utilised the museum’s macro X-ray fluorescence scanning to investigate the fabric of the building itself. Fragments of the wall fabric, floorboards, glass and green marble were scanned in the laboratory, along with images contained in the department’s archive, to create AI-generated composite images. The carpet work, Bulk: Everlasting Colour, 2023, enters the collection of RAMM alongside a print, Pentimenti (0751) that draws elements from paintings in the National Gallery collection, playing games that obscure the original subject and focus on sumptuous draperies, framing and peripheral detail instead.
During her residency, Condorelli recognised that RAMM’s 19th-century building shared commonalities with the National Gallery through its materials, institutional history and central location in its city. Mirroring its intervention in the National Gallery, Bulk: Everlasting Colour will occupy the centre of RAMM’s Gallery 20. Alongside Pentimenti (0751), this acquisition offers audiences an alternative way to experience the gallery space, one that is radically different from conventional gallery behaviours.
Céline Condorelli (b. 1974, Paris, France) lives and works between London and Lisbon. Solo exhibitions include National Gallery, London (2023); South London Gallery (2022); Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Spain (2021); FRAC Lorraine, Metz (2020); Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel (2019) and P!, New York, USA (2017).
Group shows include Nottingham Contemporary (2022); Singapore Biennial; Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara (both 2019); Gwangju Biennale; Liverpool Biennial; and Biennale of Sydney (all 2016).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through a partnership with the 2022 National Gallery Artist in Residence programme, with the support of Anna Yang and Joseph Schull, 2023/24
Griffin Award
Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool
Chris Day
Now you see me
2024
Blown glass with mixed media
115 x 120 x 35 cm
The Griffin Award is designed to support the annual acquisition of an important work in a craft medium in all applied arts media including, but not limited to, ceramics, glass, metal, jewellery, textile, wood and lettering.
Through his works, Chris Day explores his identity as a mixed-heritage man. Researching his ancestry has prompted him to expose the history of the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies through his art. He engages the audience by prompting reflection on difficult issues, hoping to overcome the traumas that haunt collective pasts. Day graduated from Wolverhampton University after 20 years working as a heating engineer, gaining skills as a plumber that continually inform his artistic practice. In his art he incorporates materials used in the heating industry, such as glass blown into his signature ‘copper cages’. Day feels that a piece’s uniqueness, its individuality, gives it a distinctiveness akin to the struggle to discover one’s own identity.
The catalyst for this new commission was Day’s discovery of an 18th-century painting at the Walker, The Card Party (1698–1737), after Gawen Hamilton, in which a small black servant is hidden in the painting. Day sheds light on this child’s story and the experiences of others who have been silenced. Seeing themselves in the quasi-reflective glass of the work, viewers observe an image that is present, but not quite there, mirroring the essence of the boy. The glass pieces are encased in a series of wooden boxes made of recycled pallet wood. The transformation of the wood into artwork mirrors Day’s own journey from plumber to artist, serving as a reminder that, with dedication and opportunities, one has the power to redefine
their respective paths and perceptions. Now you see me centres around the representation of a black boy, but Day hopes that the work will resonate with a wider audience, reflecting broader themes and narratives.
Directly responding to its collection, the commission and acquisition of Now you see me fits well with the Walker Art Gallery’s aim to reach a more diverse audience and its commitment to decolonise the collections. Day’s work aligns with the Walker’s aims to reimagine how its displays are interpreted and collaborate with global ethnic-majority artists.
Chris Day (b. 1968, Derby, UK) lives and works in the West Midlands. Solo exhibitions include Vessel Gallery, London (2020). Group exhibitions include 2 Temple Place, London (2024); and Harewood House Trust, Leeds (2021). His work forms part of many private and public collections in the UK and USA, including the V&A; National Museum of Scotland; Wolverhampton Art Gallery; Stourbridge Glass Museum; Harewood House; Museum of Glass, Tacoma; and the Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Griffin Award, 2023/24
‘My passion lies in making work that sparks reflection on the transatlantic slave trade. I am delighted to have the chance to create a commission that will start a conversation in Liverpool, so deeply rooted in that trade. I am proud that my work will be part of the Walker’s collections and eager to see the reactions and discussions it may provoke.’
Chris Day, artist
Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary Art Society
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,
Edinburgh
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger
The disorder of desire 2022
Oil and embroidery on canvas 150 x 90 cm
Mexican artist Frieda Toranzo Jaeger’s work
The disorder of desire has been acquired for the National Galleries of Scotland through the Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary Art Society award, which supports the acquisition of significant works by a living woman artist for a museum collection every year.
Conceptually driven and with a strong political dimension, Frieda Toranzo Jaeger takes an expanded approach to painting, considering issues of desire, joy, pleasure and free expression from a queer, feminist and decolonial perspective. Her practice draws on visual references from technology, the natural world and the history of Western art, often integrating Indigenous Mexican embroidery techniques to create works which are playful, sensual and commanding.
The disorder of desire expresses Toranzo Jaeger’s interest in creating works unbound from classification. The car is a recurring motif in Toranzo Jaeger’s work, representative of desire and the ultimate symbol of capitalist consumption. Here an isolated car dashboard seems to be consumed by the embroidered flowers and plants which surround this contemporary ruin. The flowers recall symbolic or decorative features of Renaissance or seventeenth-century Dutch still life painting. However, the embroidery operates on multiple layers, disrupting the painted surface and highlighting the value of Indigenous traditions and labour, too often overlooked as being the work of women or so-called ‘other ‘non-Western’ communities. The title references a recent history of sexuality by Jack Halberstam, explored through the notion of wildness and the potential for liberation through the unrestrained and unknowable.
For over ten years, the National Galleries of Scotland has actively sought to increase the representation of women artists in its holdings. More recently, work has begun to understand the colonial histories underpinning much of the collection, which spans 1300 to the present day, with collection development actively aiming to further counter the historical imbalances and structural inequalities at play. As a work that offers a contemporary critique of the history of Western art, while opening space to consider queer agency, The disorder of desire provokes discussion about the context of the collection and will enrich the stories that can be told, bringing queer, feminist and Indigenous perspectives to the fore.
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger (b. 1988, Mexico City, Mexico) lives and works in Mexico City and Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Modern Art Oxford, UK (2024); MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2022-23); HFBK, Hamburg, Germany (2022); and Baltimore Museum of Art, USA (2021). Recent group exhibitions include the 60th Venice Biennale, Italy (2024); Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City, Mexico (2023); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2020); and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2019). Awards include the HISCOX Art Prize (2016). Public collections include Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; and the German National Art Collection.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through Valeria Napoleone XX CAS, 2023/24
Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary
Acquisitions Scheme: Fine Art
‘The films and portraits created by Jasleen Kaur with a group from Rochdale’s South Asian community for her solo show, Gut Feelings Meri Jaan, interrogate how notions of cultural heritage are preserved within museum and gallery collections. They join our growing collection of work by women artists, helping us to address the absence of our past and inform our future.’
Sarah Hodgkinson, Senior Curator Exhibitions & Collections Touchstones Rochdale
Aberdeen Art Gallery
Hanna Tuulikki SEALS’KIN 2022
Single-channel moving image and stereo sound 19 min 15 sec
Through performance, moving image and vocal composition, artist and composer Hanna Tuulikki investigates ways in which the body can communicate beyond and before words. With a site-specific approach, she tells stories through imitation, vocalisation and gesture, exploring the bodily relationships and folkloric traditions encoded within specific environments. Tuulikki is particularly interested in practices of vocal and gestural mimesis of the more-than-human, offering different methods of empathy between each other and various other species, resulting in a holistic, ecological awareness.
Filmed at the mouth of the River Ythan, Aberdeenshire, SEALS’KIN (2022) is a short film showcasing a sonic and choreographed meditation on longing and loss. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney 2022, SEALS’KIN draws on myths of human–seal hybridity and folkloric musical practices to reimagine a contemporary mourning rite. Tuulikki explores what it might mean to ‘become-with-seal’, inspired by stories of selkies, mythological creatures in Scottish folklore that shapeshift between seal and human forms by shedding or wearing their seal skin. In these tales, selkies venture onto land, assuming human guise while safeguarding their seal skins in coastal hideaways. However, losing their skins renders them trapped in human form, unable to transform and return to sea. Often depicted gazing wistfully at the ocean, these creatures sing poignant melodies, seeking a connection with their oceanic kin. Drawing parallels between these poignant selkie narratives and allegories of bereavement, Tuulikki is intrigued by how these timeless tales historically offered solace in times
of grief, navigating contemporary crises such as the pandemic and climate change.
Aberdeen Art Gallery was drawn to Tuulikki’s work as it not only focuses on Scotland’s northeast coastline but also instils a sense of refuge. Furthermore, it addresses the current climate of unrest, which links directly to the gallery’s future collecting priorities. Located on Newburgh Beach, 13 miles up the road from the gallery, the shooting location is affectionately known as ‘The Seal Beach’ by locals. It also draws parallels to existing works in its collection, such as The Two Sisters (2009) by Susan Philipsz, that also look at identity and the landscape as a means of examining relationships.
Hanna Tuulikki (b. 1982, Brighton, UK) is based in Glasgow. Solo shows include Mortorenhalle, Dresden; Glasgow Cathedral with Historic Environment Scotland and Arts & Heritage; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (all 2023). Group shows include National Galleries of Scotland: Modern One (2021–23); In Between Festival, B018, Beirut; British Art Show 9, Aberdeen; Hospitalfield, Arbroath; Biennale of Sydney (all 2022); Helsinki Biennial; Tramway, Glasgow; the VOV with National Galleries of Scotland (all 2021); Edinburgh Art Festival (2020); and Edinburgh Printmakers (2019).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford
Pio Abad
n.2 (opposite, top), n.3 (opposite, bottom) and n.13 from the series 1897.76.36.18.6 2023
Black ink on paper
Each 29.7 × 42 cm
Pio Abad explores the connections between personal experiences and political issues through various art forms, including drawing, painting, textiles, installation and text. His work excavates overlooked historical events, revealing different perspectives that highlight links between incidents, ideologies and people. Born to parents at the forefront of the anti-dictatorship struggle in the Philippines during the 1970s and ’80s, Abad weaves his family’s hardships into the nation’s history, driven by a desire to remember and share this important chapter in the country’s past. Abad’s upbringing serves the foundations of his work, continuing to shape his work in direct and indirect ways.
Abad’s series of 14 drawings, 1897.76.36.18.6, is a culmination of his 2023 residency at the Ashmolean Museum. The series juxtaposes ‘diasporic’ objects that have shared the same London postal address during different moments in time: the Benin Bronzes and the day-to-day items at Abad’s current home. A fine, screen-printed forensic measuring bar on the left and bottom of the image, and a thin horizontal line above and below the objects, indicate their height. Abad utilises these historic artefacts as conduits for cultural memory. Crafted in the 16th century, the Benin Bronzes gained notoriety due to the 1897 British Expedition that terminated the Kingdom of Benin and led to extensive looting. The personal objects in the drawings feature a range of books, small furniture pieces and even a photograph of Abad’s young mother, who passed away a few years ago. Sharing the same height, the sacred West African artefacts are presented on a par with personal items, some of which quietly reflect the artist’s own experience of loss and grief. Using drawing – a genre associated
with a sense of domestic intimacy – the series is a reminder of the many individual stories that are inextricably intertwined with world history, cultural discontinuity and loss.
The Ashmolean Museum has acquired three drawings from Abad’s series, made specifically for the artist’s solo show in 2024 at the museum. Abad’s exhibition, titled To Those Sitting in Darkness, is a part of the Ashmolean NOW exhibition series where artists are invited to create work in response to the museum’s collection. Housing rich holdings of works on paper, ranging from drawings by Flemish artists of the 17th century to contemporary Chinese ink paintings, the Ashmolean provides a fitting context for Abad’s drawings.
Pio Abad (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include the Ashmolean, Oxford (2024); Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila (2022) and KADIST, San Francisco (2019). Recent group shows include the 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala; The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (both 2022); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2021) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2020). Pio Abad was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2024.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with support from the Ashmolean Museum, 2023/24
Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery
Jeremy Deller
The History of the World 1998
Silkscreen print on Somerset velvet, 280g Framed 66 x 112 cm
Signed, numbered and dated on the verso Published by Paul Stolper Edition 93 of 100
Jeremy Deller is a conceptual video and installation artist, whose practice explores political issues in relation to the countercultural. Deller is inspired by the potency of art to transform the everyday and is interested in what happens when the mundane is made profound, if only for a moment. Often drawing unexpected parallels between history, mythology and contemporary events, Deller signposts how almost everything is connected. Much of his works utilises collaborative modes of creation as he embraces the devaluation of individual artistic ego by involving other people in the creative process. With this egalitarian approach to artmaking, Deller intends his work to be approachable, accessible and relevant to the community it addresses.
The History of the World is a graphic and textual portrayal of the history, influence and context for acid house and brass band music. Adopting the form of a flow diagram, the silkscreen print on paper suggests that there are social and political echoes and points of confluence between these two musical movements. Dating from different eras, these movements seem worlds apart – acid house being a post-industrial movement of the late 20th century, and the brass band movement dating from the industrial era of the 19th century. What looks like a casually handwritten flow diagram is something that has been carefully composed and drawn with the aim that the print should induce a sense of involvement in its viewer.
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery is currently reinterpreting its industrial collection display to better reflect its relevance to Blackburn’s current communities. Looking to expand from the traditional
technological interpretation of mills, the museum aims to diversify Blackburn’s industrial narrative. This will include looking at links with the transatlantic slave trade, the impact of the industrial revolution on the Indian and South Asian textile industry, the experiences and lives of working women and men, the ultimate decline of the industry and the reuse of the empty mills by the ravers and illegal dance
culture of the 1990s. Deller’s The History of the World explores similar themes based on Northern working class lives, showing how mills have gone through massive adaptations to meet the needs of their local communities.
Jeremy Deller (b. 1966, London, UK) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Nir Altman Gallery, Munich (2022); Galerie Hubert Winter,
Vienna (2021); Futur Zwei, Vienna (2019); Rupert, Vilnius (2017); and Karlin Studios, Prague (2016).
Recent group exhibitions include Carbon.12, Dubai (2022); Guimarães, Vienna (2019); Pina, Vienna (2018); and sans titre, Paris (2016). Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004 and represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2013.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre
Ndayé Kouagou
A coin is a coin 2022
Video, one channel
4 min 35 sec
Edition 3 of 5 + 1AP
Opposite
SEE? Not that difficult 2023
Fabrics, resin, printed PVC, metal screw 42 x 29.7 cm
Ndayé Kouagou is an artist whose practice stems from his own texts, which develop into performances, installations and sculptures. Kouagou’s text-based works are immersive and captivating. In his practice, Kouagou subverts the intended function of language, using it to incite confusion as opposed to clarity. Asking a multitude of existential questions, yet giving very few answers, Kouagou speculates whether art can engender real thought or change.
A coin is a coin is a short video piece that challenges its viewers’ biases, toying with their perception of reality. Dressed in a deconstructed suit, wearing eyeshadow and a single earring, he adopts the persona of an entertainment figure and appears to be lip-syncing to his own text, which was pre-recorded in a feminine voice. Opening with a confrontational statement, ‘If you were looking for direction this is not the place, look elsewhere’, Kouagou spirals into a monologue about a single coin as an allegory of bigger issues such as power, belief and freedom. He performs a specific way of wayfinding, manipulating the audience’s gaze around the video. As a result, the artist emphasises position over direction, communicating that it is not about where one is going but where one stands, or how one sees and perceives.
SEE? Not that difficult belongs to a series of works in which rhetorical statements taken from A coin is a coin are hung on the wall – with no prior context given. A mixture of resin, fabric and transparent PVC, Kouagou’s pseudo-painterly wall-based works
transition between layers of clarity and opacity. Overlaid with bold, capital lettering, SEE? Not that difficult acts as a mini billboard, converting a passive viewer into an active one. Both works, though conceived as individual, are extensions of each other, actively blurring boundaries between the stage and the behind-the-scenes, the inner and the societal, the truthful and the constructed.
Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre has been actively developing its Text Art Archive, focusing on language art through the Contemporary Art Society, since 2012. A significant addition to the Text Art Archive, the acquisition of Ndayé Kouagou’s works also reflects the museum’s commitment to addressing the representation imbalance in their permanent collection.
Ndayé Kouagou (b. 1992, Montreuil, France) lives and works in Paris, France. Recent solo exhibitions include Sundy Gallery, London; and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (both 2023). Recent group exhibitions include Gathering Gallery, London (2023) and Galerie Imane Fares, Paris (2022).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library, Preston
Emma Prempeh
It’s the People That Make a Home 2023
Oil, acrylic and Schlag metal on canvas
76.2 x 61 cm
Opposite 1936 2023
Oil, acrylic, print and Schlag metal on canvas
35.6 x 27.9 cm
Emma Prempeh, a British artist with Ghanaian and Vincentian heritage, explores interior spaces together with aspects of her personal history, reconstructing environments in an attempt to physically grasp moments of familiarity, expectation and nostalgia. The starting point of her work is the manipulation of tonal properties, shadows and darkness, which provide a cinematic basis to invoke memories of events, people and places. Schlag metal (imitation gold leaf ) is added to selected areas of her paintings and oxidises over time, creating slow, visual changes that animate the images as they provide a physical representation of time. Prempeh occasionally experiments with projected, still and moving imagery to create painting installations that invite other experiential and performative encounters with her work.
Prempeh’s works dive into magical realism and the diaspora, addressing questions of what it is like to feel in-between. She explores where we decide what is our home and how this is experienced by individuals across the African diaspora and those who cross and interweave within it. In her portraits, Prempeh begins by exploring the people closest to her, such as her grandma who was a part of the Windrush generation. It’s the People That Make a Home presents a sense of warmth and features her grandma sharing photographs. The cat in the background is totemistic of Prempeh’s presence and is a symbol of rest. Prempeh sees her
grandma’s home as a place of refuge and comfort, with her home being an expression of her cultural identity. 1936 portrays the feet of Prempeh’s grandma, emphasising Prempeh’s roots in the UK as a result of her grandma’s migration to Britain.
The Harris Museum owns relatively few works by women artists, particularly figurative paintings that explore experiences of identity, representations of diversity and intergenerational family life. It’s the People That Make a Home and 1936 are important additions to the collection, forming a part of a major display when the Harris reopens in 2025. With particular focus on narratives that explore identity, heritage and a sense of belonging, the museum has an ongoing commitment to working with local communities including Preston’s Windrush generation and descendants.
Emma Prempeh (b. 1996, London, UK) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Ordovas Gallery, London (2023); Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos, Nigeria (2022); Ada\ Contemporary Art Gallery, Accra, Ghana (2021); The Lightbox Gallery and Museum, Woking (2020). Recent group exhibitions include Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana; Tiwani Contemporary; and Frieze No.9 Cork Street, London (all 2023).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Huddersfield Art Gallery, Kirklees Museums and Galleries
Simeon Barclay
Iceberg 2022
Perspex, wood, puppet 220 x 82 x 77 cm
Simeon Barclay is interested in how we construct and perform our identity based on collective memories. In a diverse range of media, Barclay’s work engages with aspects of aesthetics, often transforming gallery spaces with colour, light and industrial materials. Central to his works are the references to popular culture during his formative years in northern England, including aspirational images of footballers and actresses, as well as objects such as cars and dolls. Barclay’s consumption of popular media made him question societal and gendered expectations from his position as a youth working in the manufacturing industry. Producing works that activate complex cultural histories, Barclay explores the role of the diaspora in British culture that is constantly evolving.
In 2022, Iceberg was commissioned by South London Gallery as a part of Barclay’s solo exhibition, In the Name of the Father. In Iceberg, Barclay presents a puppet modelled on himself, encased in a tinted Perspex cube. Sandwiched between a dog kennel and a chicken coop, the cube plays on the tropes of minimalist sculpture. Informed by his interest in the conflation of Pop and Minimalism, Barclay considers what it means to bring content into the latter’s empty containers, drawing on notions of visibility and concealment, optics, self-perception and helplessness. The puppet, a superficial object with no agency over its own form, is a recurring symbol in Barclay’s works. Dressed in Elton John’s 1980 Donald Duck costume, the puppet is an allusion to the vaudeville and variety performance of the British TV culture of Barclay’s childhood. It comically conveys how outlandish fashion can enable both hypervisibility and invisibility, as a means of rejecting dogma and enabling self-reinvention.
Following exhibitions in institutions like Tate Britain, Huddersfield Art Gallery is looking forward to showcasing Barclay’s work in his home town’s art collection, which is continually expanding to be more representative of the diverse communities of Kirklees.
Simeon Barclay (b. 1975, Huddersfield, UK) lives and works in Leeds. Recent solo exhibitions include South London Gallery, London (2022); Workplace Foundation, Gateshead; The Holden Gallery (both 2019); Tate Britain, London (2017); and Cubitt, London (2016). Group exhibitions include shows at Jerwood Visual Arts, London; Copperfield Gallery, London; Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer, Vienna (all 2018); Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels; Arcadia Missa, New York (both 2017); and Liverpool Biennial (2016). In 2020 he was selected to be included in the British Art Show 9.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Bianca Roden, 2023/24
Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum
Sunil Gupta
Untitled #8 (opposite, top) and Untitled #13 (opposite, bottom) from the series
The New Pre-Raphaelites
2008
Archival inkjet print
Each 70.9 x 106.7 cm
Sunil Gupta is a photographer, writer and curator, seeking to promote a greater understanding of questions regarding representation, sexuality, access and cultural difference. Spanning four decades, Gupta has used photography as a critical practice, reflecting on his community through highlighting queer subjectivities through portraiture. Currently, Gupta’s focus lies on queer migration in Canada, where he spent his teenage years, introspectively exploring his journey and identity formation through photography. Throughout his artistic oeuvre, Gupta remains dedicated to foregrounding the stories of those in marginalised communities, merging personal narratives with broader social commentary.
Commissioned by Autograph Gallery, The New Pre-Raphaelites is a series of ten photographs that respond to issues surrounding Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, criminalising homosexuality. This law, instituted by the British in 1861, led to the arbitrary arrest and exploitation of LGBTQ+ Indians and was not overturned until 2018. Gupta’s series takes inspiration from historical paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites. The staged photographic works recreate the vivid colours and strong physical presences of Pre-Raphaelite paintings but simultaneously reflect contemporary queer culture in India. Through exotically patterned backdrops, extravagant costumes and sometimes nude bodies, the images concentrate on Gupta’s chosen subjects – real people who occupy the spaces of criminal intent. Both portraits selected by Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum depict queer bodies not only as the protagonists, but also at a state of rest. In Untitled #13, a trans woman leans against
a vermillion bolster, adorned in a sari and regal gold jewellery, while in Untitled #8, a gay couple recline nude on a sofa lined with pink silk sheets.
The collection at Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum includes a number of works by Pre-Raphaelite artists, who often used exotic settings and radical techniques to grapple with modernity and explore relationships. Particular connections can be drawn between Gupta’s two prints and the gallery’s popular watercolour by Simeon Solomon, Sleepers and One that Watcheth (1870).
Sunil Gupta (b. 1953, New Delhi, India) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include Hales Gallery, New York (2023); The Image Centre, Toronto; Studio Voltaire/St Mary’s Hospital, London, and Charing Cross Hospital, London (both 2022); Matèria, Rome; Holburne Museum, Bath (both 2021); and The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2020). Group exhibitions include New Art Gallery, Walsall; Foundling Museum, London; Tate Britain, London (all 2023); Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Henie Onstad Museum, Høvikodden (both 2022); TJ Boulting, London; Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens; Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi; and Haus der Kunst, Munich (all 2021).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Mead Gallery, University of Warwick
Art Collection
Veronica Ryan
Breadfruit (Moraceae)
2021
Bronze
86 x 97.8 x 80 cm
Edition 3 of 3 + 1 AP
Veronica Ryan is an artist whose sculptures and assemblages are inspired by the natural world around her. In her works, Ryan investigates how everyday objects, having been cast in various materials, elicit a plethora of histories and meanings. Combining personal and cultural references while drawing on a wide variety of materials and techniques, her works are not figurative, but rather associative. Some of the everyday objects Ryan has worked with over the years include tropical fruit, fabrics, marble and fishing lines, as well as plaster, clay and bronze.
Breadfruit (Moraceae) is part of Ryan’s three cast fruit sculptures unveiled in St Augustine’s Tower, Hackney, which won her the Turner Prize in 2022. The chosen Caribbean fruits – breadfruit, custard apple and soursop – are commonly found in the local markets within this culturally diverse London borough. Positioned at waist height, the sculptures look as though they have just been plucked from a bustling fruit stall. Crafted from marble and green patinated bronze, Breadfruit (Moraceae) recalls the robust exterior and sweet interior of these fruits, signifying the profound cultural connections they hold for diaspora communities. Furthermore, the symbolic seeds of the fruit carry connotations of fertility, growth and potential, serving as a poignant tribute to the substantial contributions made by the Windrush generation and their descendants to British society. The launch of Ryan’s sculpture marked the commencement of Black History Month in 2021, making Breadfruit (Moraceae) and its counterparts not just a memorial but rather a celebratory monument.
This acquisition is a historic moment for Mead Gallery as Breadfruit (Moraceae) will be the first sculpture by an artist of colour to join its Sculpture Park. The gallery recognises the work’s immense potential for diverse audiences, serving multiple strategic purposes by acknowledging Windrush communities outside London, addressing narratives of colonialism and migration. This emphasises the Mead Gallery’s commitment to supporting all artists and their communities, also aligning with its climate emergency agenda (breadfruit is expected to replace rice and wheat in high-temperature regions).
Veronica Ryan OBE (b. 1956, Plymouth, Montserrat) lives and works in London and New York. Solo exhibitions include Alison Jacques, London; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York (both 2022); and The Art House, Wakefield (2017). Group exhibitions include William Morris Gallery, London; Sharjah Biennial 15, Sharjah, UAE (both 2023); Tate Liverpool; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (all 2022); and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton (2021).
Purchased with support from the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund. Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
National Maritime Museum, London
Alberta Whittle
Tapestry by Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh Feeling Blue 2023
Cotton, linen, synthetic yarn, cultured freshwater pearl beads, displayed on powder-coated steel gates made by Glasgow Sculpture Studios 160 x 155 cm
Tapestry woven for Dovecot by Naomi Robertson, Master Weaver and Elaine Wilson
Alberta Whittle’s multifaceted practice is preoccupied with developing a personal response to the legacies of the Atlantic slave trade, unpicking its connections to institutional racism, white supremacy and climate emergency. Whittle is motivated by the desire to manifest selfcompassion and collective care as key methods of battling anti-Blackness. She draws from archival materials and found footage in her works, which are frequently produced in collaboration with a network of artists, choreographers and performers. Oscillating between film, photography, sculpture, textile and painting, Whittle frequently explores the theme of water as a nebulous carrier of stories and forgotten histories.
Commissioned by Royal Museums Greenwich, Feeling Blue is a tapestry by Whittle in collaboration with Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh. The tapestry stands within powder-coated steel gates by Glasgow Sculpture Studios, prominently featuring the phrase ‘feeling blue’ against a backdrop of blues and greens. Installed in the historic Queen’s House, the tapestry reflects the significance of the colour blue in both the site’s 17th-century décor and its association with the maritime world. The phrase ‘feeling blue’, traditionally connoting sadness, originated from naval practices of mourning and colonial history associated with indigo production. Intertwining colonialism, maritime history and environmental concerns, Feeling Blue incorporates coloured ropes that symbolise hope and oppression, with decorative
coral symbolising climate crisis issues, and pearls representing wealth and power in maritime portraits. The tapestry prompts contemplation of power dynamics in historical narratives while inviting reflections on today’s climate crisis.
Situated in the Queen’s Presence Chamber, the tapestry acts as an intervention, calling attention to the accumulated grief of empire. It is placed in opposition to the portraits of two 16th-century paintings: The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I and Marcus Gheeraerts’s portrait of Sir Francis Drake – figures directly responsible for the engine of colonialism.
Alberta Whittle (b. 1980, Bridgetown, Barbados) lives and works in Glasgow. Recent solo exhibitions include Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Holburne Museum, Bath; Museum of the African Diaspora, San Fransisco (all 2023); Scotland Pavilion, Venice; Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York (both 2022); Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (2021); Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) (2019).
Recent group exhibitions include Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2024); Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (both 2023); Sainsbury Centre, Norwich; Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Whitechapel Gallery, London; and Tate Britain, London (all 2022).
Purchased with assistance from the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery
Florence Peake
Factual Actual Release 7 2023
Acrylic oil and oil bar on paper
152 x 122 cm
Opposite
Factual Actual Performance Documentation 10 2022
Signed and dated on verso, acrylic paint on metallic card
30 x 21 cm
Factual Actual Performance Documentation 9 2022
Signed and dated on verso, acrylic paint on metallic card
30 x 21 cm
Florence Peake explores the intrinsic connection between the body and materiality. Her work incorporates performance and material-based mediums such as painting and sculpture in a reciprocal nature, using one to leverage and inform the other. By foregrounding the typically concealed processes of art creation, Peake orchestrates performances that encourage chaotic relationships between body and material, generating the foundation of her paintings and drawings. Through this symbiotic relationship, Peake accentuates the disparity between the outcome and the process, presenting the contrast between represented reality and the tactile, felt experience. Her work underscores how we perceive something versus its intrinsic nature, calling attention to the disconnect between experiential reality and objective reality.
The series Factual Actual captures the contrast of the imagined body with its objective form. Consisting of small- to large-scale paintings, drawings and performances, the works are induced by the bodily sensations of having multiple limbs, many breasts and multiple genders layering over each other. Peake’s making process starts with lying on the paper and marking around her body,
drawing around it as she moves, immortalising both the physical and embodied traces she creates. In addition to these corporeal sensations, Factual Actual also responds to grief, loneliness and the bodily sensations of troubled times. Factual Actual Release 7 showcases a definitive outline of a face – a rare occurrence among Peake’s paintings that suitably marks the end of the Factual Actual series. Meanwhile, Factual Actual Performance
Documentation 9 and 10 are small-scale paintings documenting Peake’s Factual Actual: Ensemble performed at Southwark Park Galleries in 2023, a multilayered, performative, queer Gesamtkunstwerk.
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery has acquired numerous figurative works over the last ten years. Peake’s practice sits in this trajectory, with a particular focus on movement and the body. The works also relate to a broader collection focusing on performance and choreography, forming the centrepiece for a new collection display in Norwich Castle’s modern and contemporary art gallery from January 2024.
Florence Peake (b. 1973, London, UK) lives and works in London. Recent solo shows include Towner Eastbourne (2024); Southwark Park Galleries, London; Richard Saltoun Gallery, London (both 2023); z20 Gallery, Rome (2021); CentroCentro, Madrid; and Bosse & Baum, London (both 2019). Recent group exhibitions include Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM), Exeter (2023); GIANT, Bournemouth (2022); and Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (GAMeC), Bergamo (2018–19).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with support from the Norfolk Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
Gurminder Sikand
Woman and Cell
2018–21
Pencil, charcoal and Conté crayon on paper
47 x 74 cm, framed
Opposite, bottom
Oneness B
1992
Watercolour and gouache
99.5 x 82 cm, framed
Opposite, top
Gurminder Sikand was an artist whose practice shifted in medium and method, yet remained rooted in her interest in gender, ecology and mythology. From pastels to watercolour to pencil, Sikand moved through several stylistic periods across four decades, each recognisable by its primary medium and subject matter. She often reworked her paintings and drawings, viewing them as palimpsests and leaving visible the faint presence of earlier figures.
Woman and Cell and Oneness B represent two distinct periods in Sikand’s career. In Oneness B, Sikand depicts a multi-headed figure against a cosmic landscape. A recurring image in Sikand’s art, the multi-headed goddess is an influence that Sikand attributed to her formative years in India and exposure to Hindu iconography. Additionally, Sikand’s interest in the environment was inspired by the Chipko movement in India, in which women embraced trees to prevent their felling by commercial loggers. During the later part of her career, Sikand started to use pencil and charcoal, producing monochromatic works such as Woman and Cell, which was showcased at TG Gallery, Nottingham, in 2021, her final solo exhibition before her passing. While the title Woman and Cell alludes to incarceration, the imagery reveals otherwise, showcasing a muscular female figure towering over a small building. Created over three years, Sikand’s labour-intensive process
is especially prominent in this work due to the harshness and precision of pencil as a medium, as she inscribes and erases the paper into an almost three-dimensional, textural material.
Sikand’s contributions to the Nottingham arts scene, such as co-founding the Nottingham Indian Artists’ Group with Said Adrus and Sardul Gill, make this acquisition particularly significant for Nottingham City Museums & Galleries. Sikand’s connection to the Midlands spans from when she graduated in Fine Art from Birmingham Polytechnic in 1983, after which she settled in Nottingham, where she passed away at the age of 61. Having acquired Sikand’s painting Striped Heads (1994) previously, the museum is all the keener to showcase a comprehensive representation of Sikand’s diverse artistic oeuvre.
Gurminder Sikand (b. 1960, Jamshedpur, India, d. 2021, Nottingham, UK). Solo exhibitions include Trace Gallery, Nottingham (2023); TG Gallery, Nottingham (2021); New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2012); Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, London (1996); Walsall Museum and Art Gallery, Walsall (1995); and Huddersfield Art Gallery, Huddersfield (1994). Group exhibitions include Tate Britain, London; Barbican, London (both 2023); Quarrylab, Nottingham (2018); Air Gallery, London (2000); Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry (1999); Arnolfini, Bristol (1991); Castle Museum, Nottingham (1990); and Commonwealth Institute, London (1985).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Southampton City Art Gallery
Rachel Jones
say cheeeeese 2022
Oil stick, oil pastel on canvas
12.5 x 32.5 cm
Through her curated explosions of colour, Rachel Jones’s paintings translate abstract, existential concepts into something visual and visceral. Her paintings traverse entire spectrums of colour, while ensuring balance and moments of visual rest. Layered and complex, her mark-making maintains a sense of immediacy and experimentation, reflecting her journey and progress in attuning herself with her palette. Jones often alludes to halfformed shapes that prompt viewers to search for familiar objects or bodily features – such as teeth, lips or flowers – but ultimately these elements dissolve back into abstraction. Within her diverse artistic practice, which also includes installation, sound and performance, Jones addresses the interiority of the black body and what it feels like to be observed in society. Thus, by providing a glimpse of familiarity within abstraction, Jones invites the audience to interpret her work based on their experiences and backgrounds.
say cheeeeese builds on Jones’s existing artistic oeuvre, repeating the motif of obscured teeth and the orifices that contain them. Only partially legible, these forms signal a multitude of both symbolic and literal entry points to the interior self. Jones’s work extends the use of teeth to incorporate bold, hand-drawn lines over dense blocks of colour. The shapes, marks and tones often clash and overlay, or sit uncomfortably side by side, creating differing perspectives. say cheeeeese invites the viewer to contemplate what emotional responses are assigned to a colour or a form – for example, to reconsider the association of red with anger, or blue with sadness, and in doing so, to explore the possibility of contrasting expressions coexisting simultaneously.
Southampton City Art Gallery houses a prolific collection of Western art, from the Renaissance to the present day, with a strong commitment to British 20th-century and contemporary paintings. The acquisition of say cheeeeese by Rachel Jones will contribute to the strength of the collection; adding to the narrative of British art across centuries, Jones’s work represents a contemporary take on the body’s relationship with the self.
Rachel Jones (b. 1991, London, UK) lives and works in London. Recent solo shows include St James’s Piccadilly, London; Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg; Long Museum, Shanghai (all 2023); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2022); Thaddaeus Ropac, London; and Harlesden High Street, London (both 2021).
Group shows include Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Galleri Futura, Stockholm (all 2022);
Hayward Gallery, London; and Drawing Room, London (both 2021).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of the Chipperfield Bequest Fund, 2023/24
The Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
Brandon Logan
Sweet May 2023
Acrylic and string
16 x 10.5 cm
Throat Ache 2023
Acrylic and string
13 x 12 cm
Opposite, bottom right
Kiss 11 2023
Acrylic and string
19 x 13.5 cm
Opposite, bottom left
Kiss 12 2023
Acrylic and string
18.5 x 13.5 cm
Opposite, top right
Kiss 14 2023
Acrylic and string
19 x 14 cm
Opposite, top left
Half Hope 2023
Acrylic and string
52 x 39 cm
Brandon Logan is interested in the malleability of paint as a medium, blurring the lines between painting and sculpture. Driven by a desire to work on a surface more permeable than a traditional canvas, Logan’s technique involves saturating and securing string warps with multiple layers of paint, allowing colour to be held within the strings themselves. Each layer represents a deliberate choice, preserving a narrative of previous decisions. His work embodies both fluidity and structure, exploring diverse patterns, textures, sizes and colour combinations, as well as
levels of intensity. This approach enhances the depth of his work while reinforcing a playful push-and-pull of meaning and texture.
The six acquired artworks all exemplify Logan’s techniques on differing scales. Inspired by his island home in Orkney, Logan’s interconnected use of paint with string structures contains a sense of fluidity and movement. Half Hope is the largest painting in the collection of acquired works. It incorporates cut-outs, which can be interpreted as portals to what lies beneath the surface, or as islands in suspension surrounded by a sea of green. Meanwhile, the trio of works entitled The Kiss 11, 12 & 14 showcases a freer use of paint as Logan experiments with different colour pairings to create a dramatic exploration of materials. Lastly, the smaller works, Sweet May and Throat Ache, display alternating rows of colour striking through a white background, across columns of strings. All part of Logan’s solo exhibition Skeleton Stories, these works made their debut at the Pier Arts Centre from September to November 2023.
This acquisition not only complements Logan’s work Salt Pig (2021), which the gallery acquired previously, but also inspires connections between contemporary painting and the gallery’s core collection. For example, the gallery is looking to place Logan’s work Throat Ache alongside paintings by Ben Nicholson and Winifred Nicholson. Moreover, the Pier Art Centre is looking to continue to represent younger artists, supporting the growth of Scotland’s art scene.
Brandon Logan (b. 1996, Aberdeen, Scotland) lives and works in Stromness, Orkney. Solo exhibitions include Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh (2024); the Pier Arts Centre, Stromness (2023); and Zembla Gallery, Hawick (2019). Recent group exhibitions include Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh; Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh (both 2023); and Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2020). In 2020, Logan was named Emerging Scottish Artist of the Year by the Fleming Collection and Scotland House London.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Alexandra Kadzevich
Placing orAppearing to Place 2023
Oil on linen
100 x 80 cm
Magic on the Borders of Things 2023
Oil on linen
120 x 40 cm
Above
Alexandra Kadzevich finds inspiration in the surrounding landscape. Interested in small details that usually escape the eye, Kadzevich collects fragments of form and colour from ordinary objects to imbue her paintings with their essence.
The blurring of the boundaries between painting and sculpture creates a rich dialogue in her work. Kadzevich’s paintings have an intimacy of time and place, and her sensitive handling of experience is expressed through her materials to create works that evoke traces of both the familiar and the mysterious.
Kadzevich’s placement and handling of colour trigger notions of land and sea, highlighting the coexistence between what is static and what is always shifting. In Placing or Appearing to Place, soft washes of colour in sandy, earthy hues contrast with tones of violet blue. In Magic on the Borders of Things, areas of canvas have been left raw, contrasting with the bold brushwork that dances across the painting. Kadzevich’s colour palette
has the warmth of the earth and the coolness of sea and sky, which harmonise with brighter moments of yellow and pink. A vertical line divides the composition almost in half, signifying a border or threshold as Kadzevich demarcates a space of fluctuating feeling and meaning.
The Pier Art Centre is developing a collection of works by women artists who experiment with processes that are intuitive and reflective. The qualities of Kadzevich’s paintings resonate with works in the Centre by Barbara Hepworth and Margaret Mellis, who were pushing the boundaries of everyday materials at the forefront of Modernist art. Pier Arts Centre has also held a solo exhibition of Kadzevich’s works in 2019 as part of the UK/SWAP residency programme, developed by the British Council.
Alexandra Kadzevich (b. 1992, Odesa, Ukraine) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include The Naked Room Gallery, Kyiv; Dymchuk Gallery, Kyiv; Hotel Intourist-Zakarpattia, Uzhhorod (all 2021); Pier Arts Centre, Stromness; and Artsvit Gallery, Dnipro (both 2019). Recent group exhibitions include Woonhuis, Amsterdam (2023); Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York; Galleria Doris Ghetta, Italy; ODP Galerie, Leipzig (all 2022); Detenpyla Gallery, Lviv (2021); and Dnipro Centre for Contemporary Culture (2019).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Touchstones Rochdale
Jasleen Kaur
Gut Feelings Meri Jaan
2021
Installation of 7 single-channel videos and 7 custom-made kameezes
Films:
Untitled (Farm)
Untitled (Archive)
Untitled (Bright)
Untitled (Hair)
Untitled (Chillies)
Untitled (Hermal Seeds)
Untitled (Steps)
All 2021, variable durations
Kameezes:
Rahela Khan
Riz Ali
Shakra Butt
Nasrine Akhtar
Jasleen Kaur
Bushra Sultana
Alina Akbar
All 2021, fabric, variable dimensions
Jasleen Kaur explores the malleability of culture and how social histories are embedded within the material and immaterial things that surround us. Kaur’s practice examines diaspora identity and hierarchies of history, both colonial and personal. With a background in metalwork and jewellery, materiality and its associations play an important part in the outcome of Kaur’s works, which are often curated in close dialogue with each other to form a larger, site-specific installation. Kaur’s practice addresses the intersections between the diaspora community and food culture, using food as a connecting thread to foster honest conversations about family, loss, labour and duty.
Gut Feelings Meri Jaan is a series of works commissioned by UP Projects London and Touchstones Rochdale in 2021. Working closely together, Kaur and a group from Rochdale’s South Asian female
and gender nonconforming community interrogate how notions of cultural heritage are preserved in Touchstones’s archive. This project considers the human body as a living archive and carrier of histories as opposed to a traditional, fixed record.
The films compile footage of the group members performing at local sites tied to histories of empire and post-war migration from former colonies. One film showcases the group washing a statue of a Victorian industrialist with yoghurt. Kaur utilises the double association of yoghurt, with the South Asian community as a substance that is served alongside biryani as well as a living culture that has properties to heal the gut, where trauma is also stored. Throughout these films, the group wear the same kameezes which are then hung as part of the commission at the site.
In tandem with Gut Feelings Meri Jaan, Touchstones Rochdale is committed to amplifying the voices of migrant communities that have historically been marginalised and misrepresented. The acquisition of Gut Feelings Meri Jaan is highly site-specific to Touchstones, directly involving the South Asian community in Rochdale, which represents 19 per cent of its population. This also aligns with the museum’s focus to collect women artists.
Jasleen Kaur (b. 1986, Glasgow) lives and works in London. Solo shows include Tramway, Glasgow (2023); Humber Street Gallery, Hull; Copperfield, London (both 2022); Market Gallery, Glasgow (2018); Hantverk & Found, Margate (2016). Group exhibitions include Rochdale Art Gallery, Rochdale (2023); British Textile Biennial, Blackburn; Paradise Row Project; Touchstones Rochdale; Wellcome Collection (all 2021); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; Artcore, Derby; and The Art House, Worcester (all 2019). Jasleen Kaur was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2024.
Presented by Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
The Whitworth, University of Manchester
Santiago Yahuarcani
El baño de los espíritus
2022
Natural dyes and acrylic paint on tree bark
63 x 112 cm
Santiago Yahuarcani pays tribute to Amazonian ontologies and beliefs in his paintings and sculptures. As a leader of the Huitoto peoples, Yahuarcani strives to preserve the intricate, spiritual belief systems of his community while offering a nuanced critique of colonial extraction in presentday Peru. Yahuarcani reflects on the genocide and displacement, now known as the Putumayo genocide, that occurred with the arrival of colonising powers in the Amazon in the late 19th to early 20th century, when indigenous communities were forced into slavery by the Peruvian Amazon Company during the rubber boom. Focused primarily on portraying Huitoto mythical tales and oral histories passed down through generations, his works cement the presence and resilience of indigenous communities as they are showcased internationally. Yahuarcani, whose parents are survivors of the colonial atrocities, sees his artistic practice as a means of sharing and safeguarding these indigenous knowledge systems, which are at risk of disappearing as newer generations migrate from their ancestral lands.
In El baño de los espíritus (translated as ‘The Bath of the Spirits’), Yahuarcani employs the Huitoto trope that associates an ‘owner’ or ‘spirit’ with specific plants, situations or animals found in the forest. Rather than portraying these spirits with their conventional attributes, he grants them human-like qualities, depicting them as simply taking a bath in the river and playfully enjoying nature. Utilising ancestral memory and indigenous forms of knowledge, Yahuarcani paints on yanchama, a cloth crafted from the inner bark of fig trees, using natural dye to commemorate the resilience of indigenous people through mythical narratives. Within the context of mass
deforestation and oil spills on indigenous lands, Yahuarcani’s initially humoristic approach becomes an act of protest as he illustrates a nostalgic scenery of what once was. Challenging Western modes of logic and individualism, Yahuarcani encourages us to explore alternative ways of thinking and to foster a heightened awareness of one’s collective place in the universe and respective communities.
Currently possessing several ancient, hand-painted Andean textiles, as well as Polynesian, Tongan,
Ugandan and Fijian printed and painted works on bark cloth, the Whitworth aims to provide a more comprehensive account of indigenous history to its audience. Yahuarcani’s work speaks to the gallery’s collection and concerns, providing a contemporary perspective on traditional Andean textiles through the realm of fine art.
Santiago Yahuarcani (b. 1960, Pucaurquillo, Peru) lives and works in Pebas, Peru. Solo exhibitions include Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso de la Vega,
Lima (2023); ICPNA Cultura, Lima (2021 and 2019); and Centro Cultural El Olivar, Lima (2018). Group exhibitions include Venice Biennale; Toronto Biennial of Art (both 2024); 14th Gwangju Biennale (2023); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Lima (2022); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2021); Crisis Galeria, Lima (2020); and Matadero, Madrid (2019).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Ro Robertson
Porth II
2023
Gouche paint, watercolour pencil, graphite, sand and binder on paper 200 x 140 cm
Ro Robertson’s practice spans sculpture, drawing, painting and video, mediums through which to explore the boundaries of the human body and its environment. Robertson works in a site-specific way, often outdoors, with a multisensory focus on the body in the landscape. Unity between the material of the natural landscape and the body reclaims a space for LGBTQIA+ identity in the face of a history of its being deemed ‘against nature’. Physical explorations of the natural landscape feed into ‘automatic’ abstract drawings and short meditative video works. Robertson’s large-scale sculptures embed the fluidity of this cyclical practice into rigid and industrial materials such as Corten steel and marine paint. These materials create a bridge between the artist’s family heritage of shipbuilding and their sculptural practice.
Porth II is part of Interlude, an installation that brings together drawings and steel sculpture. It was commissioned by Tate St Ives in response to the unique position of the museum’s central sea-facing gallery, which overlooks Porthmeor Beach. Robertson used automatic techniques to draw freely and unconsciously en plein air directly on the beach, reflecting the ‘improvisation of the sea and the chance compositions it leaves behind’. Inspired by the tidal zone of the shoreline, which is submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide –in the artist’s words ‘rewriting’ the beach twice a day – the drawing appears in flux. Titled with the musical term for a passage bridging two instrumental sections, Interlude addresses ideas of existing ‘in-between’, exploring meeting points between mind and body, body and land, land and sea, or rigid steel and fluid paint.
Inspired by York-born 19th-century painter William Etty and his innovative exploration of the nude figure, York Art Gallery has since 2012 expanded its collection of modern and contemporary art responding to the theme of the body. Robertson joins an ever-growing group of contemporary artists who are concerned with the relationship between the body and landscape, including Jade de Montserrat and Phoebe Collings-James. Robertson also continues a tradition of artists working outdoors, in response to the elements, and this history can be traced through York’s collection. Echoing the coastal scenery that inspired it, Porth II oscillates between this tradition and an inner landscape that disrupts binary ideas around gender and nature.
Ro Robertson (b. 1984, Sunderland, UK) currently lives and works in West Cornwall. Solo exhibitions include Tate St Ives (2023); Maximillian William, London (2021, 2022); The Hepworth Wakefield (2019); and PAPER Gallery, Manchester (2018). Group exhibitions include Wolverhampton Art Gallery; York Art Gallery; Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York; MK Gallery, Milton Keynes (all 2023); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (2022 and 2019) and Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Penzance (2021).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Acquisitions Scheme: Omega Fund
‘The acquisition of my work for Nottingham City Museums & Galleries is particularly special as it represents two very different moments in my career. The support given by museums and the Contemporary Art Society to emerging artists helps contribute to such milestones in our careers, which are key in supporting us to continue working, continue making and attracting more opportunities.’
Bisila Noha, artist
Bradford District Museums & Galleries,
Cartwright Hall Art Gallery
Effie Burns
Casket 2021
Glass, 23.5 carat gold leaf, 22 carat moon gold leaf, wooden box, cotton velvet lining 43 x 38 x 33 cm
Interested in the slow, meditative practices of growing, foraging and harvesting, Effie Burns is inspired by the natural world around her. Having spent her childhood living in a museum, Burns is fascinated by how decaying objects can be protected and preserved, while maintaining their entropic essence. Her glass sculptures, often depicting the found objects she collects during her walks, utilise traditional skills such as casting, gilding and engraving. As her objects are all small-scale, touch and intimacy are recurring themes, demystifying the fragility and coldness associated with glass as a medium.
Casket comprises 16 cast glass pieces preserving the fleeting moments of growth and resilience. Ranging in hues from light purple to turquoise, these pieces are showcased within an antique 18th-century wooden box lined with olivecoloured velvet. The curated selection of organic matter used in casting these pieces bears traces of decay yet exudes connotations of wellness and a sense of belonging. Among the cast figures are representations of a chestnut twig mid-bloom, capturing the gradual unfurling of buds at the onset of spring. Additionally, several mushrooms, symbolising community, and interconnectedness with trees, are included. Lastly, the hazelnut, though small, holds special significance. Inspired by Julian of Norwich, a medieval anchoress known for writing Revelations of Divine Love, the first book in English by a woman, Burns commemorates the moment Julian envisioned an entire world within a hazelnut in her palm, stating, ‘All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’ Casket was selected for the Coburg Glass Prize in 2022.
The acquisition of Casket connects to both Bradford District Museums & Galleries’ arts and natural sciences collections. By displaying Casket alongside its natural science collections, it will inspire discourse around the importance and fragility of nature, supporting BDMG’s work on climate-emergency awareness and promoting sustainability. Additionally, the museum is pleased to represent a Yorkshire-based glassblower in their collection, with a work that will allow a different, nuanced approach reflecting on the natural world and climate change within Yorkshire.
Effie Burns (b. 1974, Sheffield, UK) lives and works in Whitby. Selected solo exhibitions include Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales (2024); Northern Print, Newcastle upon Tyne (2022); and Art at Home, London (2021). Recent group exhibitions include Somerset House, London; Gallagher & Turner, Newcastle upon Tyne; Glass Museum, Gernheim Glass Works (all 2023); Armitt Museum and Library, Ambleside; London Glassblowing (both 2022); and National Glass Centre, Sunderland (2021).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2023/24
Sheffield Museums Trust (Millennium Gallery)
Shinta Nakajima
Acanthus VII 2023
Britannia silver, 95.8%, copper, matte finish 28 x 23 x 20 cm
Shinta Nakajima, a metalsmith, is concerned with the materiality of metal in relation to transient nature. Primarily producing vessels, the act of hammering presents a meditative repetition, generating a dialogue between him and the working material. Nakajima constantly hammers at three times per second, maintaining a steady, metallic pulse to create convex and concave undulations within the material. Through his ritualistic, fluid approach to metal, he seeks to integrate the stability and harshness of the medium with the ephemeral beauty of plants, focusing on how seeds and fruits function as vessels of life.
Acanthus VII is a vessel commemorating the acanthus pattern that originates from Ancient Greek design. Inspired by the acanthus leaf, the pattern symbolised vitality in the realm of traditional silversmithing decorations, often incorporated in Ancient Greek temple ornaments. Over time, however, it has been overlooked and relegated to only partial adornment, deviating from its original essence. Nakajima aims to revive acanthus once more, anchoring it within vessels as repositories that harness the spiritual function of the life-sustaining structure. Aligned with the dense foliage of the acanthus leaf, Nakajima’s vessel employs a dynamic form in which the front and back markedly interchange. By obscuring the demarcation between the inside and outside, the vessel is designed to incorporate external space, preserving the acanthus pattern’s beauty and historical function.
Sheffield Museums Trust houses the city’s designated metalwork collection of over 13,000 objects across 600 years of metalwork history.
In the last 20 years, the Trust has collected work by local, regional and nationally renowned designer–makers, ensuring the collection is representative of the city today. The Trust has supported Nakajima and his practice over the last few years and is keen to acquire a part of his new Acanthus series. The addition of Nakajima’s work presents an interesting take on design at present and is something Sheffield Museums Trust wants to reflect in the city’s collection.
Shinta Nakajima (b. 1989, Tokyo, Japan) lives and works in Sheffield. He completed a BA in Metalcraft at Musashino Art University, Tokyo, and worked as a technician for five years under Professor Hiroshi Suzuki. Nakajima came to study in the UK in 2023 and attained an MA in Jewellery and Metalwork from Sheffield Hallam University. He is now a Silver Fellow at Yorkshire Artspace’s Silver Space, Persistence Works. In 2024 he won recognition for his practice at the Goldsmiths’ Craft and Design Council Awards and exhibited with Gallery FUMI, London.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Sheffield Museums Trust, 2023/24
Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library, Preston
Jacqueline Bishop Fauna 2024
Fine bone china teacup, saucer and sugar bowl glazed with digital transfers
Sugar bowl: 15.5 x 13 cm
Cup: 10.5 x 5 cm
Saucer: 15.5 x 1 cm
Jacqueline Bishop’s interdisciplinary practice centres on revealing the ephemeral, articulating the unspoken, and narrating untold stories to foreground the experiences of voicelessness. Having spent more time outside her birthplace of Jamaica than on the island itself, Bishop brings a unique perspective to her work, aware of what it means to be simultaneously an insider and an outsider. This dual perspective enables her to perceive environments from a distance and navigate various psychological and territorial realms. Additionally for Bishop, who is also a fiction writer and poet, the use of text and narratives – borrowed or authored by herself – plays a prominent role in her artistic process.
Commissioned by the Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library, Preston, Fauna is a series of porcelainware glazed with digital transfers from Bishop’s own drawings. She then collaborated with Emma Price, a British ceramicist based in Stokeon-Trent’s former Spode factories, to fully realise the work. The series emerged from Bishop’s longstanding enquiry into the role of black women in Caribbean society, particularly their maternal health prior to the abolition of the slave trade. Facing limited options, these women turned to Jamaican plants, flowers, fruits and herbs for solutions, each containing unique botanical elements that could either terminate unwanted pregnancies or enhance fertility. In Fauna, Bishop surrounds the women and their children with healing and protective herbs, symbolising their connection to nature. One piece depicts a mother offering her child to the natural environment. Bishop considers this commissioned
work a visual manifestation of her 2006 collection of poems, entitled Fauna, which used Caribbean flowers as metaphors to foreground the lives of enslaved women.
Unveiling overlooked and brutal histories of slavery and colonialism, Bishop’s work is an important acquisition for the Harris’s ceramic collection. Creating dialogues with an oil painting, recently identified as A Jamaica Landscape (c.1774), attributed to George Robertson, her work intervenes in the painting’s idealised presentation of slavery and enslavement to show enslaved women using the environment to shield themselves and their children. Fauna will go on display when the Harris reopens in Spring 2025, playing an integral part in a new display that explores the global history of tea, weaving together histories of the British Empire, colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.
Jacqueline Bishop (b. 1971, Kingston, Jamaica) lives and works in New York and Miami. Solo exhibitions include the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London (2022); and SRO Gallery, Brooklyn, New York (2018). Group exhibitions include the Valentine Museum, Richmond, Virginia; Gardiner Museum, Toronto, Ontario (both 2024); Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (2023); Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, Maine (2022); British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent (2021); and Jamaica Biennial, National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston (2017).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2023/24
Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
Bisila Noha
Reunion XV 2022
Terracotta
27 x 24 x 11.5 cm
Opposite, top
Brumas XIV (Haze XIV) 2022
White stoneware, black and white slip Dia. 43 cm
Opposite, bottom left
Brumas series 2022
Thrown marbled stoneware Dia. 27 cm
Opposite, bottom right
Brumas series 2022
Thrown marbled stoneware Dia. 27 cm
Bisila Noha is a ceramicist who draws influences from her Spanish and Equatorial Guinean heritage. Noha aims to challenge Western views on art and craft, questioning what is typically understood as productive and worthy in capitalist societies. She also reflects on the idea of home and unity, inspired by personal experiences in various pottery communities. Her practice encompasses wheel-thrown pieces, distinguished by the addition of marbled slip decoration, as well as sculptural pieces created with various throwing methods such as coiling and carving. As a result, Noha creates abstract landscapes and forms as she seeks to establish a deeper, more spiritual connection with her roots and the artisans who preceded her in history.
The four acquired works are an homage to African women potters, who are often overlooked. Reunion XV is a terracotta vessel from Noha’s series Searching for Kouame Kakahá: A celebration
of the unnamed women of clay; our shared mothers and grandmothers. Noha was enthralled by images of two-legged vessels that circulated on the internet, with no clear artist name attached. Moments later, Noha discovered that these works were by Kouame Kakahá, a contemporary female potter from Tanou Sakassou (Ivory Coast). Noha embarked on a journey to connect with the Ivorian potter, finally meeting her at the Pottery Cooperative in Tanou Sakassou. The other three pieces, which are a part of Noha’s Brumas series, are large thrown stoneware plates adorned with white and black slip marbling. The three plates are a representation of the Spanish word bruma, meaning ‘haze’, as they straddle the line between landscape and the abstract. For Noha, the Brumas collection was born of a desire to free her practice from the act of doing, and instead encourage the embracing of a state of being.
Nottingham City Museums & Galleries has been collecting studio pottery since the early 20th century and has built up a large collection. Working towards redressing the cultural and racial imbalances, it aims to represent the local community in its current pottery collection more accurately. Aiming to acquire new work that pushes the boundaries of working with clay, the Museum honours the historical traditions of studio pottery. Thus, the acquisition of Noha’s stoneware will relate to the current pottery collection and establish connections with the wider fine and decorative art collections.
Bisila Noha (b. 1988, Zaragoza, Spain) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include Galerie REVEL, Bordeaux (2022–23). Group exhibitions include Unit London; Galerie REVEL, Bordeaux (both 2023); Two Temple Place, London; York Art Gallery; Harewood House, Leeds (all 2022); Crafts Council Gallery, London; and Atherton Green Art, Hampshire (both 2021).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2023/24
Museum & Art Swindon
Amy Hughes
AfterAmphora I 2022
Grogged stoneware body, transparent glaze detailing (spice and terracotta)
44 x 35 cm
Amy Hughes is a ceramicist who explores form and decoration, often establishing dialogues between the two. The heritage of ceramics is fundamental to Hughes as a practitioner, as she cites the importance of learning from the past to achieve an in-depth, holistic understanding of the medium and its history. Fascinated by 18th century vases, Hughes’s contemporary creations often pay homage to older forms and techniques. Her works strike a balance between being playful and vibrant, while maintaining the distinct shape of vessels that have served a historical purpose. With these vases, Hughes seeks to bridge the gaps between the past and the present in existing collections and historical spaces.
After Amphora I is from a series of hand-built stoneware vases. These pieces take inspiration from ancient Greek pottery, seeking to stimulate conversation surrounding the distinctive, ancient storage jars and the intricate decoration that was painted upon them. Hughes references the amphora vessel specifically, which is a type of container used by the ancient Greeks to transport and store various products – notably wine. Characterised by its pointed base, an amphora often has at least two distinct handles joining the shoulder of the vessel’s body to its long neck. Hughes, exploring and enlarging the forms on the coil and slab built forms, creates exciting patterns and shapes with a lively and painterly approach that gives them a vibrant new lease of life. In
After Amphora I, the universal form has been deconstructed: broken pieces of ceramics appear to be glued onto the vase while strokes that appear unfinished adorn its neck and base. As a result, Hughes’s vessels comment on the
obsolescence of such vases, commemorating their contribution to history through recreating them as decorative items.
After Amphora I complements many other experimental hand-built vessels within the Museum’s studio ceramics and abstract painting collection. Museum & Art Swindon boasts a collection of archaeology and locally excavated ancient vessels, which will generate a dialogue about the past, present and speculative futures of ceramics with After Amphora I. Hughes’s work also reflects the fragmentation of history in archaeological digs, and the tension between presence and absence that characterises the excavation and reconstruction process.
Amy Hughes (b. 1985, Dewsbury, UK) lives and works in London. Selected group exhibitions include Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary, Miami (2024); Cynthia Corbett Gallery Summer Exhibition, London; British Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, London; Collect Art Fair, London; and Art Miami (all 2023).
Presented by the Contemporary Arts Society through the Omega Fund, 2023/24
Touchstones Rochdale
Lubna Chowdhary 2022
Certain Times LXXIV
12-element ceramic sculpture
50 x 144 cm
Lubna Chowdhary works primarily in the field of ceramics, bridging the disciplines of architecture, craft, design, sculpture and painting. Her practice subverts the context and utility traditionally associated with the medium of clay, addressing a long-standing preoccupation with material culture. Chowdhary’s work thrives on interconnection and the creation of relationships between a range of references and aesthetic traditions – architecture, anthropological collections, modernist design –and modes of production. Through experiments in aesthetic hybridity, her work negotiates crosscultural narratives of modernity. Her heritage – born in Tanzania to Pakistani parents who emigrated to the industrial north of England in the 1970s – brings with it the memory of richly designed spaces and diverse architectural landscapes.
Certain Times LXXIV is a new ceramic work, specially commissioned for Touchstones Rochdale’s exhibition A Tall Order! Rochdale Art Gallery in the 1980s (2023). The work reflects on Chowdhary’s childhood memories of the town of Rochdale, where her family settled and established a business in the local textile trade. Chowdhary has recalled the contrasts between the brightly coloured fabrics and the industrial architecture that formed the backdrop to her childhood, as well as her local mosque. The places and spaces of Rochdale, real and remembered, are rendered abstractly through arrangements of shape and colour to create a sensory experience. The vibrant glazed surfaces of the tiles carry the softness and irregularity of hand glazing, contrasting with the technologically precise cut of the ceramic forms.
As part of Touchstones Rochdale’s Schools Linking programme, the museum organised workshops,
events and self-guided activities around the exhibition and Chowdhary’s work, which resulted in over a thousand ceramic pieces made by young people from local schools. Supporting young people to explore identity, build connection, and strengthen communities, the Schools Linking programme runs nationally and brings together two carefully matched classes from different schools, backgrounds, nationalities, ages and faiths to share experiences.
Lubna Chowdhary (b. 1964, Dodoma, Tanzania) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include Gallery Isabelle, Dubai (2023); MIMA Middlesbrough (2022); Peer Gallery, London; Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (both 2021); and Art Basel, Hong Kong (2019). Recent group exhibitions include MK Gallery, Milton Keynes; Pilar Corrias Gallery, London; Touchstones Rochdale; Marlborough Gallery, London; Annely Juda Fine Art, London (all 2023); Hayward Gallery, London; Kiran Nadar
Museum of Art, New Delhi; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (all 2022); M+, Hong Kong; and Sainsbury Centre, Norwich (both 2021).
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund supported by the artist, 2023/24
Usher Gallery, Lincoln
Hamish Dobbie
Heavy Quarried Beaker
2023
Sterling silver
11 x 7 x 7 cm
Opposite, top
Misty Mountain Beaker 2023
Sterling silver
11 x 7 x 7 cm
Opposite, bottom
Hamish Dobbie’s work is influenced by the Scottish landscape, in which he has been a practising silversmith since 2013. His practice explores the interactive nature of domestic vessels and tableware, and how they can encourage interaction between people based on shared experiences. Drinking vessels have been Dobbie’s main focus, as the need to hold the vessel and bring it to the mouth to use it creates a particularly intimate interaction between the user and the object. Each work offers multiple points of contact between object and the body, presenting a different landscape for the hand and mouth to explore. Dobbie intends for the user to engage with them as functional pieces, and to experience the changing surfaces while handling them. His vessels invite an exchange, their metallic, semi-reflective surface capturing light to reveal the depth and texture of each vessel.
Heavy Quarried Beaker and Misty Mountain Beaker are two vessels that depict the rugged shapes and textures found in nature, created from a single sheet of silver using traditional hammering skills. Although identical in size and material, Dobbie likens them to a brother-and-sister relationship rather than that of twins, as each respectively possesses varying textures that set them apart. The textures of these beakers are inspired by various Scottish and English landscapes. Smooth surfaces blend into heavy textures and back again, populating the otherwise
cylindrical structure with mountains and valleys. The deeply carved texture of Heavy Quarried Beaker, in particular, references the famous limestone quarries in Lincolnshire, the source for much building stone across the UK.
Dobbie’s work complements the Usher Gallery’s metalwork collection, which contains pieces from the 16th century to the present day. The founding collection of the Usher Gallery was the bequest from James Ward Usher, a 19th-century jeweller and goldsmith from Lincoln. His personal collection included English silver, with examples of tea ware, tableware, drinking vessels and commemorative ware. Building on this tradition, the metalwork collection has been supplemented with pieces from contemporary local and national makers, and the beakers continue this practice.
Hamish Dobbie (b. 1991, London, UK) lives and works in Cambridge. Recent solo exhibitions include Goldsmith’s Fair (2023) and Collect (2019). Recent group shows include Collect (2024) and V&A, London (2016/17). Dobbie was awarded the Studio Internship Graduate Award, The Goldsmiths’ Company (2015); the New Designers 3D Printing Prize (2013); and was Artist in Residency at Glasgow School of Art from 2013 to 2015.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, with the support of the Friends of Lincoln Museums and Art Gallery and Lincolnshire County Council, 2023/24
Penny Mason and Richard Sykes
A number of years ago, Richard and Penny had signalled their intention to bequeath their whole collection to museums through the Contemporary Art Society, when the time came. Very sadly, in 2019 Richard suddenly and unexpectedly died and Penny took the difficult decision to move away from their home in Islington. Through 2022–23 we worked with Penny to place 101 artworks in 20 museum collections across the UK.
Together, Richard Sykes (1946–2019) and Penny Mason were generous supporters of the Contemporary Art Society for almost 30 years. They were Centenary Patrons from 2007 to 2014 before later becoming Honorary Patrons from 2009 onwards.
As avid patrons of the arts, Richard and Penny were outstanding advocates for emerging artists. Tireless supporters of visual arts institutions in London and more broadly across the UK, they were always to be seen at exhibition openings, art fairs and gallery talks. Their collection included a huge variety of media, from painting and sculpture to photography,
prints, ceramics and artists’ books, vividly illustrating an enthusiasm and endless curiosity for new work. Typically, they would establish close personal relationships with artists, which sometimes meant that they collected in depth, as was the case with the ceramicist Sarah Radstone, for example; sometimes they would acquire a major work of non-domestic scale, such as their sculptures by Claire Barclay and Alice Channer.
Richard and Penny built a home in a Grade II listed Georgian house in Islington, to house their collection of contemporary art and ceramics. The house was a haven of serenity in which to view the works, as well as a warm and welcoming home in which to bring people together. Great care was taken in matching works in all media with the appropriate museum collections.
All of their collection of artists’ books has gone to the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds, where it will be looked after in the rare books department of the Brotherton Library and will be available for scholarship as
well as displays. A magnificent painting by Angela de la Cruz has joined the nationally important collection at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and notable ceramic pieces have joined the collections at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich and Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge – two of our newest Museum Members.
In the cases of the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead, Nottingham City Museums and Leeds Art Gallery, we were pleased to be able to place significant groups of works that, beyond their individual importance, give a sense of Richard and Penny’s taste as collectors. The Hepworth Wakefield accepted a large group of ceramic sculptures by Sara Radstone, who was not represented hitherto in their growing ceramics collection. We were also delighted to be able to donate three works by the painter Arturo di Stefano to the Huddersfield Art Gallery, hometown of the artist.
The Atkinson, Southport
Ben Nicholson Urbino
1965 Etching
23.5 x 17 cm
John Stezaker
Recto/Verso 2012
Photolithograph on Somerset paper
61 x 51 cm
Simon Callery Limehouse Basin with Gravel Pile
1988
Oil on canvas on board
102 x 127 cm
Danum Gallery, Library and Museum, Doncaster
Lucy Jones Lucy Jones, 1989 1989
Oil on canvas
31 x 25.5 cm
The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
Claudi Casanovas Long Bowl
1989
Stoneware
L 46 cm
The Hepworth Wakefield
Carol Rhodes
Open Ground and Mudflats
2017
Archival pigment print in aluminium frame
52 x 45 cm
Edition 15 of 60
Robert Cooper Dry Salvage 1990
Fired clay
H 60 cm
Robert Cooper Untitled Vessel 1999
Fired stoneware
74 x 41 x 11.5 cm
Sara Radstone Standing Piece 1997
Stoneware H 107 cm
Sara Radstone Pale Hanging Piece 1994
Stoneware
170 x 8 x 5 cm
Sara Radstone
Untitled (freestanding) SR19 2000
Stoneware
H 66.5 cm
Sara Radstone
The Last Day (tall leaning ceramic) 2004
Ceramic
182 x 20 x 14 cm
Sara Radstone Slab Piece 1999
Terracotta and stoneware
39 x 67 x 8 cm
Sara Radstone Pair of Pale Caskets 1993
Stoneware
1. 28 x 15 cm
2. 25 x 14 cm
Carol Rhodes Open Ground and Mudflats 2017
Archival pigment print in aluminium frame
52 x 45 cm Edition 15 of 60
Huddersfield Art Gallery, Kirklees Museums and Galleries
Arturo di Stefano
Portrait of Jan di Stefano 1992 Oil on linen
194.5 x 97 cm
Arturo di Stefano from atelier series – 1 and 2 2000 Woodcut
Each 96.5 x 72 cm
Rebecca Salter Untitled 1996
Acrylic on canvas 20 x 25.5 cm
The Hunterian, University of Glasgow
Hayley Tompkins Armshell 2011
Mallet, knife, sleeve, watercolour, digital photographs Variable dimensions
Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum
Callum Innes Untitled (Pale Grey) 2004
Watercolour
56.5 x 76 cm
Leeds Art Gallery
Andrew Bick Idiot 1999
Wax, paint and marker pen on wood
65 x 75 x 40 cm
Claire Barclay Venge 2007
Brass and engine grease
124 x 100 x 304 cm
Jesse Darling Domestic Terror 3 (flag) 2016
Steel, cloth 71 x 1 x 81 cm
John Carter Around a Square 1995
Acrylic with marble powder on plywood 70 x 72.5 cm
Mali Morris Four Corners 1988
Acrylic on canvas 49 x 50 cm
Paule Vézelay Untitled 1934 Gouache on paper 10.8 x 16.5 cm
Manchester Art Gallery
Jac Leirner Lung 1991
Perspex and cellophane object 10 x 6 x 30 cm
The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
Kate Whiteford Untitled 1991 Oil on paper 24.5 x 20 cm
Margaret Hunter Imagining 1998
Oil on wood
100 x 80 cm
Margaret Hunter Study of a Female Figure 1988
Oil on paper 19 x 14 cm
Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
Emily Andersen Lisa and Ken Vandy, Hayling Island 1994
Selenium-toned gelatin silver print
64.5 x 56 cm
Edition 1 of 3
Gillian Wearing Olia
2003
C-print
51 x 61 cm
Gordon Baldwin Flat Vessel with Signs 1989
Painted earthenware
69.5 x 49 cm
John Goto
Enemy of the People 1995
Unique iris print
65 x 102 cm
Edition 2 of 3 + 1 AP
John Goto
Stairwell, Paris
x 22.5 cm
Mary Rogers
Large Billowing Form
1987
Stoneware
20 x 28 cm diameter
Rut Blees Luxemburg
The Veins
2000
C-print on aluminium
174.5 x 163.2 cm
Edition 2 of 5
Museum & Art Swindon
Danny Rolph Ux 1994
Oil on steel
30.5 x 30.5 cm
David Leapman
Box Man No. 3 1989
Acrylic on canvas 25 x 31 cm
Eileen Cooper
Woman Holding Up the Sky
12.5 x 17.5 cm
Jeffrey Dellow Listening Tower
41 x 47 cm
Julia Farrer Mobious II (black and white) 1998
Acrylic on board
Each 56.5 x 14.5 cm
Robert Mason
Untitled (From Three Studies) 1986
Acrylic and charcoal on museum board 23.5 x 17 cm
Stephen Chambers One Room Twice 1992 Oil on canvas
134 x 112.5 cm
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich
Linda Gunn-Russel Untitled Vessel 2004
Fired red earthenware
67.2 x 18 x 7 cm
Sara Radstone Vessel 1993 Stoneware
62 x 45 x 15 cm
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds
Anthony Benjamin + 11 others Freedom 1988
Artist book
Edition 8 of 100
Arthur Rimbaud and Julia Farrer
Les Ponts 1996
Artist book
Edition 46 of 85
Published by Circle Press
Basil Beattie and Mel Gooding Blocks 1991
Lithograph printed by Curwen Studio, screen-print boards by 1st Choice Studios Edition 73 of 100
Bryan Ingham and Aysel Ozakin By the White Sea 1997
Publication
Edition 18 of 75 + 10 AP
Published by Tricorne Publications
Callum Innes Exposed Paintings 2001
Special edition artist book with oil on paper painting Edition 50 of 50, signed and numbered
Derek Greaves
Sanskrit Love Poems 1987 Bound portfolio
Published by Tetrad Press
Federico García Lorca and Terry Frost 11 selected poems and related etchings 1989
Printed text and etching Edition 35 of 75
Published by London: Austin/ Desmond Contemporary
Harold Pinter and Tony Bevan
The Disappeared and other poems
2002
Deluxe edition with original etching Edition 34 of 75
Published by Enitharmon Press
Honoré de Balzac and Callum Innes
The Unknown Masterpiece 1996
Letterpress and original painting Edition 33 of 50 + 15 HdC
Hormazd Narielwalla
Diamond Dolls
2021
Edition 105 of 300
Co-published by Concentric Circles and EMH Arts
Ian Tyson
Canonic Variation I / Canonic Variation II Silkscreen
Edition 38 of 150
Published by Circle Press
Ian Tyson and Julia Farrer
Homage to Donald Judd / Homage to Witold Lutoslawski 1995
Collage on 300gsm sanders, handbound collage covers, unique bookwork
Jacques Jouet and Stephen Chambers
Sord Vando Voo-Vo 1996
Letterpress and woodcut leporello
28 x 20 cm
Edition 29 of 35
James Hugonin (Basil Bunting)
Ode
1986
Four screen-printed images with letterpress text in paper folder and slipcase 31 x 26 cm
Edition 75 of 75
Published by Imprints London
Jane Bustin and Andrew Renton
And a Year Ago, I Commemorated a Missed Encounter
2000
Soft ground and aquatinting, text
Published by EMH Arts/Eagle Gallery
Jean Cocteau (Trans. Jeremy Reed) and David Austen Tempest of Stars
1992
Selected poems in loose folio with 26 offset litho colour images
Edition 13 of 15
Published by Enitharmon Press
Jerome E Rothenberg and Ian Tyson
Delight/Delices and Other Gematria
1997
Litho text, collage images
Edition 1 of 24 + 6 HdC
Julia Farrer and Judith Thurman LO 2001
Artist book and hand-coloured dry point etching
Published by EMH Arts/Eagle Gallery
Liliane Lijn
Crossing Map deluxe edition 2022
Artist book ‘crossing map’, 4 cloth-bound numbered folios containing 16 leporello
lithographic prints on Fabriano paper, blue case
Edition 5 of 12
Published by Thames & Hudson
Libby Houston and Julia Farrer A Little Treachery
1990
Poem by L Houston and hand-coloured dry point by J Farrer
Edition 91 of 120
Published by Circle Press
Linda Karshan and Anca Vasiliu
Le Temps, Lui – Time Being 2000
Artist book
Edition 15 of 30
Published by Les Editions
SIGNUM
Matthew Tyson and Les Bicknell Balcons
1992
Collaged, folded and painted leporello with rubber stamp print
17.5 x 13 cm
Edition 12 of 20
Published by Imprints London
Nicolas Cendo and Les Bicknell
Dans Le Mirroir
1996
Printed from cardboard blocks with hand colour
Edition 8 of 25
Published by Imprints London
Ori Gersht
Artist Book
2012
Set of 3 volumes and accompanying text, 2 photographs
Edition 136 of 150
Published by Photoworks
Peter Griffin
Sealed with Fire –
The Neruda Suite
1997
12 silkscreen prints
38 x 56 cm
Edition 34 of 100
Robert Creely and Jim Dine Pictures
2001
Artist book with 12 original lithographs
Edition 24 of 40
Published by Tamarind Institute in association with Enitharmon Press
Ronald King and Richard Price
Little but Often
2007
Edition 350
Published by Circle Press
Roy Fisher and Ian Tyson
Roller
1999
Edition 9 of 35
Published by Circle Press
Seamus Heaney and Hughie O’Donoghue
The Testament of Cresseid:
A retelling of Robert Henryson’s poem by Seamus Heaney with images by Hughie O’Donoghue 2004
Edition 176 of 350
Published by Enitharmon Editions
Susan Derges Azure
2006
Special edition artist book with original photo
Edition 6 of 20
Published by Ingleby Gallery
Terry Smith, Mel Gooding and James Putnam Site Unseen
1997
4-colour litho, letterpress, screenprint, pub EMH Arts/ Eagle Graphics
Edition 1000
Published by EMH Arts/ Eagle Graphics
Will Hunt + 13 others
Centrefold Scrapbook No. 4: ‘I think I’ll speak today’ 2005
Artist book
Edition 20 of 43
Privately published by Reza Aramesh and Tina Spear
Sheffield Museums Trust
Elise Tak Burgaman (Dream) 2000
Computer painting
61 x 102 cm
Edition 2 of 3 + 1 AP
Gilbert Garcin
Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux 2003
Black and white baryte print, signed and numbered on the back
20 x 30 cm
Edition 4 of 12
Louise Hopkins Songsheet 2 (All You Need Is Love) 1997
Acrylic ink on songsheet
30 x 45 cm
Spencer Tunick North Dakota 1997
Gelatin silver print in aluminium frame
59 x 74.3 cm
Edition 1 of 5
Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens
Adrian Bannon
Ariadne’s Thread a collaboration with an earwig 1993
Wood, soot and earwig tracks 62 x 80 cm
Hardeep Pandhal
Unlimited Sedition 2008
Digital pigment print (150gsm)
33.5 x 59.5 cm
Edition 2 of 50
Touchstones Rochdale
Maria Chevska Why Don’t You 2001
Multimedia on canvas
72 x 72 cm
Maria Chevska Contour
1990
Oil and encaustic on canvas
Sara Radstone Recumbent Pair 1994
Stoneware
1. L 115 cm
2. L 81 cm
Sara Radstone Wall Series 1997
Set of three works of ceramic and glass
Each 20 x 8 cm
Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool
Angela de la Cruz Loose Fit
2000
Oil on canvas
150 x 140 cm
Lucy Skaer
Flash in the Metropolitan 2004
Pencil, aluminium, watercolour on paper 180 x 128 cm
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
Alice Browne
Found no. 14 2018
Acrylic, ink monoprint, collage, mika flakes
30.5 x 23 cm
Amy Stephens
Patterns in the Chaos, series no. 1–5 2014
Collage on paper
30 x 20 cm
Andrzej Jackowski Fox
2009
Etching with chine collé 20 x 25 cm
Genevieve Seille
Analogue Word Processor 1992
Mixed media construction 67 x 33 x 11 cm
Maria Lalić
Stretched lead squares –horizontals, verticals 1992
Oil on lead panel
Each 44 x 44 cm
Morag Ballard New Town 1992
Mixed media on board
10 x 13.5 cm
Rosalind Nashashibi
8 o’clock metamorphosis
2009
Silkscreen on paper
53 x 38 cm
Edition 38 of 55
Zoe Benbow
Ubiquous (ubiquitous) fin
1990
Oil on canvas
47 x 53 cm
York Art Gallery
Cornelia Parker
Engagement Ring Drawing (As Long as it Lasted)
2002
Gold and glass
61 x 61 cm
Julia Farrer
Double Theatre Variation I, II, III
2001
Acrylic on board
I. 27 x 32 cm
II. 26 x 39 cm
III. 24 x 32 cm
Rosalind Nashashibi
Untitled
2004
Collage and pen on paper
29 x 20 cm
Gift from the collection of Richard Sykes and Penny Mason, through the Contemporary Art Society, 2023
Nottingham City Museums & Galleries
Tim Head
Still Life (Erasers)
1985
Cibachrome photograph
122 x 200 cm
Edition 2 of 3
Tim Head works in a variety of mediums, including installations, photography, paintings and digital media. Over the past 40 years, Head’s artistic practice has consistently explored instability and uncertainty through the fragility of images, differing perceptions and the individual’s connection to the broader world. Unified by a consistent thematic underpinning, his creations serve as a profound investigation into contemporary reality. Head gained recognition in the 1970s with installations employing mirrors and projections, manipulating spatial perceptions in settings like the unassuming white brick stairwell of the Whitechapel Gallery in 1974. Since the 1990s, Head has developed an innovative and important body of work focused on an exploration of digital space.
Still Life (Erasers) is from an important series of large-scale photographic works made by Head in the mid-1980s, signalling his transition away from the immersive installations of the 1970s that cemented his international reputation, and before his forays into painting (1986–90) and explorations of digital media in the 1990s and 2000s. The work depicts a pile of brightly coloured erasers (for rubbing out pencil marks) set against a dark background. A memento mori for the late 20th century, it is at once stark and playful, the brightly coloured mass-produced objects (surely intended for the pencil cases of schoolchildren) contrasting with notions of death and erasure. These continue the play with illusion but also often make a political point, as in Still Life (Erasers), which shows a mound of multicoloured erasers shaped like skulls and others in the form of missiles.
Nottingham City Museums & Galleries collects contemporary British art that has made an impact on the British art scene since the 1980s. The photography collection includes work that deals with issues around cultural and personal identity, making Still Life (Erasers) very fitting as it explores the extent of life and death. Moreover, Still Life (Erasers) links to the historic memento mori still life paintings and mourning jewellery in NCMG’s collection, offering a 20th-century perspective on the fragility of life.
Tim Head (b. 1946, London, UK) lives and works in London. Notable solo exhibitions include Glasgow International (2019); Parafin Gallery, London (2014 and 2017); Modern Art Oxford (2013); Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2010); Huddersfield Art Gallery (2009); Whitechapel Art Gallery (1992); and the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1980). Selected group exhibitions include Parafin, London (2022); Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University; Royal Academy of Arts, London (both 2018); Tate St Ives; V&A, London (both 2011); the Lyon Biennale; and Tate Britain, London (both 2003).
Gifted by Florence and Martin Finegold through the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Anne Hardy Outlier
2023
Plywood, light, pewter, glass and found material
119 × 163 × 20.5 cm
Anne Hardy works with photography and large-scale sculptural installation to create immersive and sensual environments, which she calls ‘Fieldworks’. These works combine found materials with light and sound to represent in-between, urban spaces where everyday detritus, atmospheres and emotions, gather. Treating them as dreams or spells, Hardy invites us to experience and revisit our relationships to the settings that we inhabit. Hardy’s immersive practice also extends to curation. In 2019, Towner Eastbourne invited Hardy to curate an exhibition of works from the Arts Council Collection. Inspired by the Zen gardens of Kyoto, The Weather Garden reimagined the gallery space as a shifting, impermanent landscape, creating a meditative environment with light sensors that fluctuated in response to local weather data. Hardy selected artists exploring the transformative potential of materials, the interaction of humans, plants and animals, and the slippages between animate and inanimate objects.
Outlier is a wall sculpture that assembles found industrial elements, including knotted wire, nails and drips of solder that are positioned alongside both familiar and unknown functional objects. Hardy sees it as a kind of mapping, calculating or meditating tool, with the gathered objects suggesting ways of understanding through the de/reconstruction of materials. Intentionally making it feel precarious or fragile, Hardy presents a way to think about the fragility or temporary nature that any kind of understanding or resolution might have. The scuffs and marks that cover the work are ambiguous, as they resemble by-products of movement or accidents rather than the intentional marks of the artist. The
addition of the illuminated light bulb alludes to human activity and responsibility for the gathering of objects assembled around it.
Through these works Hardy creates surroundings to recognise as alternative landscapes rather than those sought out deliberately as picturesque, such as the South Downs, which is a repeated landscape in the Towner Collection. The addition of Outlier to the Towner Eastbourne collection is a material contrast to those sublime painted scenes – its hard edges, electricity and integral dust all point to the redundant, overlooked sites around the gallery’s urban landscape.
Anne Hardy (b. 1970, London, UK) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; MARTa Herford, Germany; Leeds Art Gallery (all 2018); and Art Night, London (2017). Group exhibitions include Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo (2023); British Art Show 9, Hayward Gallery Touring (2021–22); and Merz Foundation, Turin, for the Mario Merz Prize (2022).
Gift of Emma and Frederick Goltz, presented through the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle
Bjørn Wiinblad
Celia
About 1986
Porcelain
153 cm high
Bjørn Wiinblad (1918–2006) was a versatile Danish artist who gained an international reputation for his diverse work in a variety of media. His exciting, colourful, richly decorated and often playful works were intended to ‘give people joy’.
A multidisciplinary artist, Wiinblad excelled in many fields of art – including book illustrations, poster designs, textiles, glass, interior design schemes, stage sets and costume designs – on top of his widely known ceramic works. A skilled ceramicist, he had his own pottery studio from 1952 and produced a wide range of ceramics using traditional techniques, creating vases, dishes, fountains, tiles and figures in various sizes.
Celia is characteristic of Wiinblad’s imaginative figurative work and brief post as a theatre set and costume designer. Wiinblad frequently produced the same figure of ‘Celia’ in his work, but each iteration is differently painted. The female figure has a joyful smiling round face framed by her black pigtails and wears an elaborately decorated long dress and tall hat. He designed Celia for practical use as a flower holder, sculpting her large hat to be open at the top so that it becomes a vessel. Wiinblad’s trademark smiling figures also adorn his other pieces. His figures are often set in fantastical or folkloric settings inspired by Scandinavian folk art. Wiinblad’s bold decoration, rich colours and dense detail made his work highly regarded in Denmark because it was a radical departure from pared-back Nordic design. Eric and Jean Cass bought the piece on a visit to Copenhagen in the 1980s.
Celia is a major addition to Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery’s collection, which includes a growing number of significant contemporary ceramic
acquisitions. The vessel also complements Tullie House’s Costume Collection and Pre-Raphaelites galleries, which both focus on the stories of women and reinvigorate Tullie House’s collection of 300 historic decorative porcelain figures.
Bjørn Wiinblad (b. 1918, Copenhagen, Denmark) died in 2006 at the age of 87. Initially a typesetter and illustrator, Wiinblad developed a love of ceramics during his studies at the graphic school of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1943. He learned ceramic techniques in Lars Syberg’s workshop in Taastrup, where he also began working. His debut exhibition was held in 1945 at the Binger Gallery, Copenhagen. Since then, his work has been exhibited internationally, has won several awards and is represented in several major collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Copenhagen and the National Museum in Stockholm.
Gift of the Estate of Eric and Jean Cass, through the Contemporary Art Society, 2023/24
CAS *Consultancy
CAS *Consultancy has seen growth and diversification over the past year: our work developing cultural strategies has expanded into delivery of public art schemes on several fronts, while new clients have come to us for commissioned artworks in the public realm in Westminster, the City of London and at Wembley Stadium. Previous clients have returned, inviting *Consultancy to devise and deliver additional schemes in Cambridgeshire and across the London boroughs, and we’ve secured further strategic work in Swansea, which is in its early stages. The past 12 months have been busy. We’re working with partners and our Associates to deliver nationally significant best-practice strategies, collections and commissions across the UK, connecting communities and making Great Art For Great Places.
‘We are delighted to have worked with CAS *Consultancy. Their experience and expertise in the field has helped guide us through the complex process of selecting an artist, preparing a brief and ultimately commissioning a bespoke piece of artwork. We were very impressed by their in-depth knowledge and contacts in the industry making it a seamless and enjoyable process. Commissioning a bespoke piece of public art that involves extensive consultation and engagement with various stakeholders and groups can be a daunting process for parties with little experience, but the team were instrumental in assisting us through the various stages and we are very pleased with the outcome of what is a genuinely engaging, in-keeping whilst striking piece of art for our Campus. We couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome!’
Orestis Tzortzoglou, Senior Development Director BioMed Realty
‘CAS *Consultancy made significant contributions to the development of the Smithfield Area Public Realm project. They played a pivotal role within the Design Team appointed by the City of London, specifically leading the Artist in Residency aspect of the project. This involvement encompassed various crucial tasks, including assisting in the preparation of the project brief, facilitating the artist selection, and ensuring active artist engagement.
CAS*C brought a meticulous and cutting-edge approach to the residency, positioning the artist as a critical friend who challenged the designers to achieve a design that was both inclusive and innovative. Their commitment and expertise were instrumental in fostering fruitful cross-disciplinary collaboration and establishing robust relationships to drive the project forward. Their involvement significantly enhanced the quality and depth of the Smithfield Area Public Realm project, ensuring its success through their comprehensive support and facilitation of creative collaboration.’
Clarisse Tavin, Group Manager Major Programmes and Projects City of London Corporation
The Humanitarian Aid Memorial
The Humanitarian Aid Memorial Committee and Gunnersbury Park and Museum Trust
We’ve been working with a group of senior humanitarian figures since 2016 to devise and deliver the first dedicated Humanitarian Aid memorial in the world. Chaired by Sir John Holmes, formerly UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, this group includes members representing the Disasters Emergency Committee and the Overseas Development Institute, among others.
Early on in this process, we commissioned Michael Landy, CBE, RA, to develop the memorial design in collaboration with the Committee. Michael’s proposal is for a work of art that creates space for people to reflect on humanitarian stories and values; to recognise and remember not only those who have died but those inspired by humanitarian ideals who continue to give their best around the world. It is to be a celebration of lives well lived, rather than a traditional monument to the dead, encapsulating the best of humanitarian tradition and principles –respect for life, independence and impartiality.
We’re now working with Gunnersbury Park and Museum Trust to site the memorial in its listed grounds. Straddling the boroughs of Hounslow and Ealing, Gunnersbury was owned by the Rothschild family before becoming a public amenity for the people of West London. Last year, the Museum achieved Arts Council NPO status, and there are plans to link the Museum’s significant outreach programme with a humanitarian education pack for schools and families.
Siting the work at Gunnersbury offers an opportunity for the Park to host a memorial of tremendous resonance for local communities and an artwork of international importance, as Landy’s first permanent publicly sited work.
Michael Landy
Born in London in 1963, Michael Landy lives and works in London. Landy’s concern with the attribution of value and ownership is central to his practice, notably in Break Down (2001), in which every one of Landy’s 7,227 possessions was systematically destroyed by him and his assistants over the course of two weeks in a former C&A department store building in Oxford Street, London. In a documentation of passing intimacies, for Transport for London’s Art on the Underground, Landy created Acts of Kindness (2011–12), in which he invited members of the public to submit stories of kindness later featured on London Underground stations. Landy’s works are held in public institutions internationally. He received a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2021.
The Royal Docks Mural and Community Workshops
Mayor of London and Mayor of Newham
Following our work delivering the Public Art Strategy for the Royal Docks, *Consultancy has worked to deliver the beginnings of the public art offer, advocating for approaches and methodologies that bring together the cultural, educational and commercial initiatives in the area to form partnerships that connect, support and improve networking and organisational collaboration for culture across the Docks.
In 2023, *Consultancy began working with the street art collective Wood Street Walls on a largescale mural commission for Magellan Boulevard in the heart of Royal Albert Wharf. The mural was created in collaboration with the local community through a series of workshops, a drop-in community painting day and training days with students from the University of East London.
Prior to designing the mural, Wood Street Walls and *Consultancy worked with Year 4 pupils from Gallions Primary School in Newham. Workshops involved a nature walk in nearby Beckton Park during which children, teachers and carers were asked to identify plants and wildlife and collect fallen leaves before returning to the classroom. The next session invited pupils to create rubbings and cyanotype prints with the leaves and other natural materials collected on their walk. A second workshop saw local residents and friends of the Royal Docks discussing the mechanics of cyanotype-making and the wildlife of the area with Wood Street Walls and conservationists before creating their own images.
The 62-metre-long artwork was informed by these community workshops and their resulting cyanotypes. The mural was delivered by the artist duo STATIC in collaboration with students from the University of East London’s Royal Docks campus.
Stanhope with Oxford North Ventures, Thomas White Oxford, Fletcher Priest Architects and Gustafson, Porter + Bowman
Oxford City Council has approved the Public Art Scheme that *Consultancy delivered last year, and we are now working with two artists to develop new works to be delivered in line with the first phase of the Oxford North development in the summer of 2025.
Our Public Art Scheme addresses stakeholder communities as they come online, with live events, collaborative workshops and performances advocated for alongside more traditional public artwork models. The scheme promises art that is woven into the fabric of the landscape and architecture across the development, both now and in the future. It will embrace digital transformation and innovation, enable new forms of visitor experience and offer a feeling of welcome and inclusion with public art that is sustainable, while inviting residents to be part of the creative process from the outset with a range of thematically linked art practices.
We are delighted to confirm that two artists have been commissioned to deliver works for Oxford North’s first phase:
Olafur Eliasson, Central Landscape
Born in 1967, Eliasson grew up in Iceland and Denmark, where he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1995, he moved to Berlin and founded Studio Olafur Eliasson, which today comprises a large team of craftspeople, architects, archivists, researchers, administrators, cooks, programmers, art historians, and specialised technicians. Since 1997, his solo shows have appeared in major museums around the globe. He represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The weather project, in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London. In 2019, Eliasson was appointed as the United Nations Development Programme’s Goodwill Ambassador to advocate for urgent action on climate change and sustainable development goals.
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Northern Ponds Ginsberg (b. 1982) examines our fraught relationships with nature and technology. Her work explores artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, conservation, biodiversity, and evolution, as she investigates the human impulse to “better” the world. She experiments with simulation, representation, and the nonhuman perspective to question the contemporary fixation on innovation over conservation, despite the environmental crisis. She is the lead author of Synthetic Aesthetics: Investigating Synthetic Biology’s Designs on Nature (MIT Press, 2014), and in 2017 completed Better, her PhD by practice, at the RCA, interrogating how individuals’ powerful dreams of “better” futures shape the things that get designed. In 2023, Ginsberg won the S+T+ARTS Grand Prize – Artistic Exploration for her experimental interspecies living artwork Pollinator Pathmaker. Commissioned Editions have been planted for LAS Art Foundation at Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, for the Serpentine, London and at Eden Project, Cornwall.
Springstead Village Public Art Granta Park Public Art
Bellway Latimer Cherry Hinton LLP
Springstead Village will be a major extension of the Cherry Hinton suburb of Cambridge, three miles from the city. The development will focus on ecology, greening and sustainability with a vision integrating housing and public space within a rich, living landscape.
Building on the deep connections between the Garden Cities and the Arts and Crafts movement, CAS *Consultancy’s Public Art Strategy followed the principles set out in the development’s master plan, referencing its Youth & Play Strategy through the integration of unique creative concepts, local narratives and natural materials in its recommendations.
The Strategy proposes the integration of an artist – and the public art they develop – into the public realm and play design process. Art is embedded into the planning process to add value to landscape, play provision, wayfinding and street furniture, creating an exemplar of public art and transformative design collaboration.
In 2023, *Consultancy began this commissioning process with London-based artists Wayward.
Wayward
A London-based landscape, art and architecture practice, Wayward is an award-winning collective of designers, artists and urban growers. Since 2006, Wayward has pioneered new methodologies in the creative use of underutilised land and meanwhile spaces, transforming derelict sites into largescale, design-driven spaces that engage local communities and inspire international audiences.
Projects include the Union Street Urban Orchard, London; the Helsinki Plant Tram; and the Queen’s Walk Window Gardens, a micro-city of urban allotments for London’s Southbank Centre. For the past decade, Wayward has designed and tested innovative new social, cultural and economic models for sustainable green spaces, including Farmopolis, an urban farming concept bringing together food, farming, arts and culture. Wayward takes a unique approach to landscape through the creation of narrative environments with projects that connect people through nature, creating vibrant places which are productive, meaningful and imaginative.
BioMed Realty with Eric Parry Architects and Terence O’Rourke Landscape Architecture
*Consultancy’s work with BioMed Realty continues, with the delivery of a public art commission that began as a Public Art Strategy last year. It identified the ambition to commission an artwork that is unique to the site, has resonance for the communities Granta Park serves and is a positive addition to the sustainability agenda of the campus.
Granta Park is an important estate in one of the world’s most dynamic life sciences zones. Home to leading companies including Gilead Sciences, AstraZeneca, Illumina, Pfizer and PPD, the current estate offers 120 acres of inspirational surroundings in rural Cambridgeshire for a population of nearly 4,000 people working at the cutting edge of biomedical research. Granta Park is expanding, with its Phase 2 masterplan approved by South Cambridgeshire District Council.
We are delighted to share that Berlin-based Asad Raza has been commissioned to deliver a public art project focusing on the health of the River Granta.
Asad Raza
American–Pakistani artist Asad Raza has been selected to undertake a new public art commission at Granta Park in Cambridgeshire. The artist is known for projects such as Untitled (plot for dialogue), where he installed a tennis-like game in a deconsecrated 16th-century church in Milan; and Diversion, which saw him reroute the Main River to flow through Kunsthalle Portikus in Frankfurt. Conceiving of art as a metabolic, active experience, Raza creates participatory interventions that prompt visitors to interact with their environment and interrogate the relationship between nature and culture.
CJ Mahony
Our work with Granta Park has also expanded to include a new commission for Granta Park One, the campus’s latest research building, which will open to incoming tenants this autumn. BioMed was interested in commissioning a local artist to develop a site-specific work for the building’s atrium that could humanise the space, adding a sense of welcome.
In response, *Consultancy was able to engage CJ Mahony, a Wysing Studio artist. CJ’s work for Granta Park One will be delivered later this year. CJ lives and works in Cambridge, having studied Sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art and completing their MA at Camberwell College of Art in 2012. CJ has undertaken a large number of publicly funded commissions, including Tate, National Theatre Scotland, ITV, National Trust, Cambridge Junction and Opera North. Their work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions internationally and in the UK. In 2010, CJ co-founded Aid & Abet, an artist-run project space in Cambridge, which they co-directed until 2014. CJ works as a tutor, mentor and lecturer, most recently at Glasgow School of Art.
University of Bristol CAS *Consultancy Clients and Partners
In 2018, *Consultancy was appointed to write a public art strategy for the University of Bristol, as well as two location-specific strategies for estate developments in Campus Heart (centred around the planned New University Library) and Temple Quarter. Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC) will be a dedicated space for University of Bristol staff and students to work alongside the community, industry partners, businesses and city stakeholders.
As part of the strategy delivery for TQEC, *Consultancy is working on an ambitious public art programme, which comprises three communityfocused commissions. The first, Charting Change, will see a lead artist initiate a participatory project that engages local artists, communities and partner organisations. This longitudinal project will explore the industrial history of the site alongside its technological future and contribute to a contextually relevant identity for the new campus. A lead artist is being appointed to work with communities in Bristol to develop a series of temporary activations animating the TQEC site during construction. The research and art outcomes produced during this period will inform a permanent artwork for the publicly accessible Story Exchange, which will be part of the main new campus building.
Aspen
Bellway Latimer Cherry Hinton
LLP
BioMed Realty
City of London
Colt
The Crown Estate
David Walker Architecture
Eric Parry Architects
FC Conway
Fletcher Priest Architects
The Football Association
Gunnersbury Museum and Park
Development Trust
Gustafson, Porter + Bowman
Greater London Authority
Lendlease
M3 Consulting
Mayor of London
Mayor of Newham
Niazi Roden Architecture
Oxford North Ventures
Stanhope
Stantec
Steering Committee for the Humanitarian Aid Memorial
Swansea Council
Thomas White Oxford
University of Bristol
Westminster Council
YTL Developments
‘CAS*C have supported Stanhope and Thomas White
Oxford, the development company of St John’s College
Oxford, in conceiving a major new public art scheme, establishing a local stakeholder group, and through the initial stages of artist selection. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with them, have valued their guidance and been impressed with their management of the process so far.’
David Reay, Development Director
Stanhope Plc
Supporters and Patrons
The generosity and active involvement of the Contemporary Art Society’s Supporters and Patrons continually enables our vital work with public museums and galleries, our open dialogue with artists and a wide-ranging, engaging programme around contemporary art. We would like to thank the following individuals, organisations and foundations who have made our charitable work possible from April 2023 to March 2024.
CAS Supporters & Special Project Funders
Arts Council England
Creative Scotland
Helen Faccenda
Emma & Fred Goltz
Sarah Griffin
Henry Moore Foundation
The Lord & Lady Lupton
Valeria Napoleone
Bianca Roden
Sfumato Foundation
Cathy Wills
Anna Yang & Joseph Schull
Collections Fund
2023/24
Charlotte Artus
Nicola Blake (Co-Chair)
Jenny Christensson
Bertrand Coste
Liesl Fichardt
Stephanie Holmquist
Béatrice Lupton (Co-Chair)
Suling Mead
Minka Nyberg
Katrina Reitman
Pamela Stanger
Council
Emma Goltz
Bianca Roden
Pamela Stanger
Anita Zabludowicz
Gold Patrons
Michael Bradley
Sophie Diedrichs-Cox
Liesl Fichardt
Emma Goltz
Whitney Gore
Soo & Jonathan Hitchin
Stephanie Holmquist
& Mark Allison
Sophie & Anthony Kingsley
Chris Kneale
Alexandra Lindsay
Béatrice Lupton
Suling Mead
Bertrand & Elisabeth Meunier
Keith Morris OBE
& Catherine Mason
Tim & Andrew Pirrie-Franks
Bianca Roden
Will Rosen
Varvara Roza
Bruce Sansom
Dasha Shenkman OBE
Pamela Stanger
Robert Suss
Ryan Taylor
Tina Taylor
Peter Wild & Minka Nyberg
Mary Wolridge
Jonathan Wood
Edwin & Dina Wulfsohn
Anna Yang & Joseph Schull
Silver Patrons
Charlotte & Alan Artus
Nicola Avery-Gee
Sarah Barker
Jenny Christensson
Bertrand Coste
Loraine Da Costa
Belinda de Gaudemar
Sarah Elson
Susan Furnell
Roopa & Thierry Girard
Sarah Griffin
Mark Harris
The Heller Family
Harinder Hundle
Helen Janecek
Marcelle Joseph
Gerald Kidd
Amanda Lambert
John Lynch
Simon & Midge Palley
Adam Prideaux
Katrina Reitman
Susan Rosenberg & John Lazar
Florian Simm
Brian Smith
Emily Sun
Marc & Brenda Vandamme
Janka Vazanova
Audrey Wallrock
Clara Weatherall
Stella Weatherall
Cathy Wills
Young Patrons
Sonia Barbey
Eleanor De Rusett
Charlotte Diemer
Maria Hinel
Katie Hundere
Yisi Li
Carali McCall
Claudia Moross
Zhaobo Yang
Indira Ziyabek
International Patrons
Marie Elena Angulo
& Henry Zarb
Jill Hackel & Andrzej Zarzycki
Renate Kurowski-Cardello
We are also grateful to our generous supporters who wish to remain anonymous
Honorary Patrons
Glenn Brown CBE & Edgar
Laguinia
Jean Cass
Christopher Jonas CBE
Penny Mason
Elizabeth Meyer
Alison Myners
Mark Stephens CBE
Jackson Tang
Russell Tovey
Artist’s Table Committee for
Gilbert & George
Marco Compagnoni
Liesl Fichardt
Suling Mead
Minka Nyberg
Tim Pirrie-Franks
Nick Smith
Artist’s Table Committee for Thomas J Price
Charlotte Artus
Liesl Fichardt
Emma Goltz
Soo Hitchin
Ralph Segreti
Mary Wolridge
Development Board
Charlotte Artus
Nicola Blake
Marco Compagnoni (until December 2023)
Bertrand Coste
Liesl Fichardt
Emma Goltz (Chair)
Béatrice Lupton
Suling Mead
Ama Ofori-Darko
Robert Suss
(joined January 2024)
Mary Wolridge
Trustees and Staff
Trustees
Nicola Blake
Michael Bradley
Marco Compagnoni (Chair until December 2023)
Tommaso Corvi-Mora
Emma Goltz
Béatrice Lupton
Suling Mead
Keith Morris
Valeria Napoleone
Ama Ofori-Darko
Francis Outred
Tim Pirrie-Franks
Bianca Roden
John Shield
Robert Suss (Chair from January 2024)
Cathy Wills
Edwin Wulfsohn
Anna Yang
Staff
Caroline Douglas Director
Sophia Bardsley Deputy Director
CURATORIAL
Christine Takengny
The Roden Senior Curator, Museum Acquisitions
Ilaria Puri Purini
Curator of Programmes (until May 2023)
Paula Zambrano
Curator of Programmes (from May 2023)
Jordan Mouzouris Curator of Digital
Victoria Kosasie Curatorial Trainee
Tania Adams Collections Researcher
Ksenya Blokhina Image Rights Manager
DEVELOPMENT
Dida Tait Head of Philanthropy (from January 2024)
Ally Bennett Senior Manager, Development (until August 2023)
Karis Okereke Manager, Development (from October 2023)
Clemmie Langley
Assistant Manager, Development (until May 2023)
Martha Hibbert
Assistant Manager, Development (from June 2023)
Tosin Adegoke
Communications Manager (until September 2023)
Mia Douglas
Communications Assistant (from September 2023)
CAS *CONSULTANCY
Colin Ledwith
Head of CAS *Consultancy
Megan O’Shea
Senior Art Producer, Consultancy
Jordan Kaplan
Senior Art Producer, Consultancy
Katharina Worf
Senior Art Producer, Consultancy (maternity leave)
Iona Rowland
Senior Art Producer, Consultancy (maternity cover)
ADMINISTRATION
Myles Burgess Administrator
Toju Iluyomade
Office Manager (until August 2023)
Heidi Regan
Office Manager (from October 2023)
Index of Artists
Special Projects
Céline Condorelli
Chris Day
Grada Kilomba
Goshka Macuga
Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum
Frieda Toranzo Jaeger
Dominque White
Fine Art
Pio Abad
Simeon Barclay
Jeremy Deller
Sunil Gupta
Rachel Jones
Alexandra Kadzevich
Jasleen Kaur
Ndayé Kouagou
Brandon Logan
Florence Peake
Emma Prempeh
Ro Robertson
Veronica Ryan
Gurminder Sikand
Hanna Tuulikki
Alberta Whittle
Santiago Yahuarcani
Omega Fund
Jacqueline Bishop
Effie Burns
Lubna Chowdhary
Hamish Dobbie
Amy Hughes
Shinta Nakajima
Bisila Noha
Gifts and Bequests
Emily Andersen
David Austen
Gordon Baldwin
Morag Ballard
Honoré de Balzac
Adrian Bannon
Claire Barclay
Basil Beattie
Zoe Benbow
Anthony Benjamin
Tony Bevan
Andrew Bick
Les Bicknell
Rut Blees Luxemburg
Alice Browne
Jane Bustin
Simon Callery
John Carter
Claudi Casanovas
Nicolas Cendo
Stephen Chambers
Maria Chevska
Jean Cocteau
Eileen Cooper
Robert Cooper
Robert Creely
Jesse Darling
Angela de la Cruz
Jeffrey Dellow
Susan Derges
Jim Dine
Arturo di Stefano
Julia Farrer
Roy Fisher
Terry Frost
Federico García Lorca
Gilbert Garcin
Ori Gersht
Mel Gooding
John Goto
Derek Greaves
Peter Griffin
Linda Gunn-Russel
Anne Hardy
Tim Head
Seamus Heaney
Louise Hopkins
Libby Houston
James Hugonin (Basil Bunting)
Will Hunt
Margaret Hunter
Bryan Ingham
Callum Innes
Andrzej Jackowski
Lucy Jones
Jacques Jouet
Linda Karshan
Ronald King
Maria Lalic
David Leapman
Jac Leirner
Liliane Lijn
Robert Mason
Mali Morris
Hormazd Narielwalla
Rosalind Nashashibi
Ben Nicholson
Hughie O’Donoghue
Aysel Ozakin
Hardeep Pandhal
Cornelia Parker
Harold Pinter
Richard Price
James Putnam
Sara Radstone
Carol Rhodes
Andrew Renton
Arthur Rimbaud
Mary Rogers
Danny Rolph
Jerome E. Rothenberg
Rebecca Salter
Genevieve Seille
Lucy Skaer
Terry Smith
Amy Stephens
John Stezaker
Elise Tak
Judith Thurman
Hayley Tompkins
Spencer Tunick
Ian Tyson
Matthew Tyson
Anca Vasiliu
Paule Vézelay
Gillian Wearing
Kate Whiteford
Bjørn Wiinblad
Image Credits
New Member Museums
© National Glass Centre, Sunderland. Photo credit: David Allan.
© The Lightbox, Woking. Photo credit: Deniz Guzel
Special Projects
© Celine Condorelli. Photo credit: National Gallery
© Goshka Macuga. Courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London. Photo credit: Angus Mill
© Grada Kilomba. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
© Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery
© Chris Day, courtesy of the artist. Photo credit: Simon Bruntnell.
© Dominique White, courtesy of the artist, MO.COPanacée and Veda. Photo credit: Marc Domage
© Frieda Toranzo Jaeger, courtesy of the artist and Trautwein Herleth, Berlin. Photo credit: Ramiro Chaves
© Jeremy Deller, courtesy Paul Stolper Gallery, London.
© Hamish Dobbie, courtesy the artist.
Fine Art
© Hanna Tuulikki. Courtesy of the artist
© Pio Abad. Photo credit: Andy Keate
© Ndaye Kouagou. Courtesy of the artist and Sundy, London
© Emma Prempeh. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary. Photo credit: Hannah Burton
© Sunil Gupta. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2024. Image courtesy of the artist and Hales London and New York; Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto; and Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi.
© Simeon Barclay. Courtesy of the artist, Workplace UK, and South London Gallery. Photo credit: Tom Carter
© Ro Robertson. Courtesy of the artist and Maximillian William, London. Photo credit: Deniz Guzel
© Veronica Ryan. Photo credit: Andy Keate
© Florence Peake. Courtesy of Richard Saltoun Gallery London and Rome
© Rachel Jones. Photo credit: Eva Herzog
© Brandon Logan. Photo credit: Pier Arts Centre
© Alexandra Kadzevich. Photo credit: the artist
© Santiago Yahuarcani. Courtesy of the artist and CRISIS Gallery. Photo credit: Juan Pablo Murrugarra
© Jasleen Kaur. Photo credit: Rochdale Arts & Heritage Service
© Alberta Whittle and Dovecot Studios. Photo credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Omega Fund
© Shinta Nakajima. Photo credit: Shinta Nakajima
© Jacqueline Bishop. Photo credit: Simon Critchley
© Bisila Noha. Photo courtesy of the artist
© Effie Burns. Photo credit: Ceri Oakes
© Lubna Chowdhary. Photo Credit: Nick Higgins
© Amy Hughes. Courtesy of Cynthia Corbett Gallery. Photo credit: Cristina Schek
Gifts
© Bjorn Wiinblad. Photo credit: Stuart Walker Photography
© Tim Head. Photo credit: Frederic Griffiths, Nottingham City Museums and Galleries
© Anne Hardy. Courtesy Maureen Paley, London
Penny Mason and Richard Sykes (portrait). Photo credit: Sin Bozkurt
CAS *Consultancy
University of Bristol Library. Photo courtesy: Hawkins\Brown + Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Workshop at Gallions Primary School. Photo credit: Iona Rowland
Beckton Parks Community Meadow
Design Workshop. Photo credit: Iona Rowland
Asad Raza. Photo credit: Alex de Brabant
Michael Landy. Photo credit: David Bebber
CJ Mahony. Photo credit: Georgie Grace
Olafur Eliasson. Photo credit: Lars Borges
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. Photo credit: Nathalie Théry
Heather Ring, Wayward. Photo credit: Mike Massaro
Tom Kendall, Wayward. Photo credit: Andrew Urwin