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Date of publication: July 2025
Edited by Caroline Douglas, Lydia Figes, Martha Hibbert, Jordan Kaplan, Isis Ky, Megan O’Shea, Christine Takengny, Katharina Worf and Dr Paula Zambrano. 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 Fraser Muggeridge studio Printed by Graphius
Inside back cover image: Troika, Third Nature (detail), 2024. Photo by Angus Mill
Back cover image: The Artist’s Table, Alvaro Barrington, 2025. Photo by Alfi Moss-White
Foreword
It is a pleasure to once again put pen to paper to record so many exciting achievements in the past year. In spite of the headwinds of global events that create significant challenges for us all, there is much to celebrate.
Rob Suss took over as chair of the board of trustees in January 2024 and has invited several new trustees onto the board, bringing with them a whole range of skills and experience that will be a great advantage to the charity. We extend the warmest welcome to Liesl Fichardt, Tim Marlow, Charlene Prempeh, James Robertson, Isabelle von Ribbentrop and Ruth Warder.
As ever we are also indebted to our advisory committees for fine art and craft, and this year we welcomed the artist and Slade School of Art lecturer Peter Davies to the fine art committee, where he is already making an impact.
In the last year we placed 68 artworks by 45 artists in 31 different museum collections. The total value of the works placed was £1.2 M. These numbers include four works acquired through our Special Awards and eleven gifts.
The gifts placed this year include an important sculpture by Anne Hardy that enters the collection at The Box in Plymouth, courtesy of our friends Jill Hackel and Andrzej Zarzycki. The work was one of a new suite of sculptures that were inspired by Hardy’s residency at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, in the winter of 2022. Six sculptures by Glasgow-based Karla Black join the collections in Leeds, Rochdale and Orkney, thanks to the generosity of the artist herself and Galerie Gisela Capitain. Black has shown extensively throughout Europe and the US and represented Scotland in Venice in 2011.
2024 was the year that we were able to fulfil a long-held ambition to acquire work by the painter Mohammed Sami. In September we were delighted to be able to take a group of patrons for a special tour of Sami’s extraordinary exhibition, After the Storm at Blenheim Palace. Later in the year, and with very generous support from our trustee Liesl Fichardt, we purchased a work from the exhibition for Pallant House in Chichester. Thanks are also due to Eleanor Crabtree at Modern Art for her help in making this happen.
Liesl and fellow trustee Nicola Blake co-chaired the committee for the Collections Fund at Frieze this year. We are immensely grateful to them and the whole committee for enabling two outstanding purchases for the Hepworth Wakefield: a major work by the Korean sculptor Haegue Yang, as well as a wonderful new wall-based work by Nour Jaouda. Once again, it was especially rewarding to be able to place work by an artist as established as Yang, as well as supporting an artist at an earlier stage in her career. Wakefield’s presentation of women sculptors becomes more distinguished with every year, and not least by the addition of a large-scale work by Tau Lewis, acquired through the partnership between CAS, the Henry Moore Foundation and our trustee Cathy Wills.
Not included in the publication this year are four very exciting commissions that are currently underway. Through the Griffin Award, the ceramicist Ranti Bam is making new work for the Craft Study Centre in Farnham, exploring connections between her own practice and the historic studio ceramic collections there. The silversmith Adi Toch is commissioned to make new work for the Reading Museum, again supported by the Griffin Fund, and the artist Hannah Starkey will be embarking on a commission for the Danum Museum and Art Gallery in Doncaster, funded through our long-running partnership with Valeria Napoleone, to honour the contributions of the women of the mining communities there, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Miners’ Strike. Tullie in Carlisle commissioned the London-based jeweller Castro Smith to make a new ring using the natural world as inspiration.
The year has been noteworthy for two exceptional fundraising events, Artist Tables with Chantal Joffe, chaired by the inimitable Sophie Kingsley, and with Alvaro Barrington, chaired by the redoubtable Nicola Avery-Gee. We must pay tribute to the extraordinary generosity of both of these artists and their galleries Victoria Miro and Emalin, and to the energy and sheer imaginative powers of the two chairs, who not only delivered events that were as stylish as they were fun, but also were hugely successful fundraisers. We are also indebted to Grayson Perry, and to Mazdak Sanii, CEO of the online platform Avant Arte. Grayson made a print, Magical Thinking, that was offered on the Avant Arte site as a timelimited edition for just one week in late October. In that time, 1,116 prints were sold, netting income of over £220,000 for the CAS. A large version of the print is featured in Grayson’s current exhibition, Delusions of Grandeur, at the Wallace Collection in London.
As ever, the patron programme has seen a succession of inspiring and unique events throughout the year. Special mention must be made of the tour in September of Anselm Kiefer’s studio complex in Barjac in the South of France, which provided an immersion in the artist’s work and ideas that left an indelible mark on all of us who were lucky enough to experience it. We would also like to offer heartfelt thanks to our trustee Francis Outred for hosting a very special private view of his Frank Auerbach exhibition, which inaugurated his new exhibition space in October, with a wonderful lunch afterwards that brought together friends old and new.
In these difficult times, we never take for granted the loyalty and generosity of all those individuals who support the Contemporary Art Society’s work. We remain a unique organisation, nationally and internationally, and together we make a tangible impact across the country, enriching lives now and for generations to come. We hope you will enjoy the new design of the publication this year and find time to take in the new section that describes the excellent programme for museum curators that is run throughout the year and is so critical to our relationships with Member Museums. Our thanks go to the designer Fraser Muggeridge who has created this fresh new look for us. The CAS is 115 years old in 2025, our longevity perhaps thanks in part to an ability to continually embrace the new.
Caroline Douglas, Director Rob Suss, Chair of Trustees
Our trustee Anna Yang, with her husband Joe Schull, have kindly supported our partnership with the National Gallery Artist in Residence programme for the last five years. Katrina Palmer was the fourth artist in residence at the National Gallery, and with Anna and Joe’s support, we have acquired three works made during the residency for Touchstones Rochdale. This year Anna and Joe are passing the baton to Suling Mead, who will continue the support of this enlightened partnership and one of the most exciting residency projects in the UK. We would like to record our heartfelt thanks to Anna and Joe for being wonderful partners from the project’s inception, through all the challenges of the pandemic years and up to the gallery’s momentous 200th year. It has been a landmark project for the Contemporary Art Society and we look forward to continuing the adventure with Suling. 7
Member Museums
In the last year we placed 68 artworks by 45 artists in 31 museum collections.
The total value of the works placed was £1.2 M.
Total number of community group visits
124,806
Total number of visitors 32,203,963
Total number of schoolchildren in organised visits
1,088,022
Artists acquired by the CAS in 2024–25
1. Evelyn Albrow pp. 76–77
2. Ash & Plumb pp. 80–81
3. Delaine Le Bas pp. 50–51
4. Christiane Baumgartner p. 37
5. Karla Black pp. 95–97
6. Helaine Blumenfeld p. 94
7. Jodie Carey pp. 60–61
8. Kedisha Coakley pp. 54–55
9. Chris Day pp. 70–71
10. Godfried Donkor p. 46
11. Billy Dosanjh pp. 44–45
12. Nick Goss p. 90
13. Lothar Götz p. 91
14. Garth Gratrix p. 32
15. Joy Gregory p. 56
16. Anne Hardy pp. 88–89
17. Nour Jaouda p. 17
18. Isaac Julien p. 42
19. Eleanor Lakelin pp. 74–75
20. Ghislaine Leung pp. 58–59
21. Tau Lewis pp. 18–19
22. Richard Long p. 48
23. Jemisha Maadhavji p. 39
24. Jade de Montserrat pp. 40–41
25. Bisila Noha pp. 72–73, 78–79
26. Katrina Palmer pp. 20–21
27. Vicken Parsons p. 36
28. Claire Partington pp. 68–69
29. Katie Paterson p. 33
30. Anousha Payne pp. 84–85
31. Su Richardson pp. 24–25
32. Mohammed Sami p. 47
33. Zina Saro-Wiwa p. 43
34. Tanoa Sasraku pp. 30–31
35. Tai Shani pp. 28–29
36. Mike Silva p. 57
37. The Singh Twins pp. 62–63
38. Castro Smith pp. 82–83
39. Emma Stibbon p. 38
40. Emilie Taylor pp. 26–27
41. Phoebe Unwin pp. 92–93
42. Barbara Walker pp. 52–53
43. Charmaine Watkiss pp. 34–35, 64–65
44. Shaqúelle Whyte p. 49
45. Haegue Yang p. 16
Special Awards
‘We are so grateful to the CAS for this incredible opportunity to purchase work for The Hepworth Wakefield’s collection at Frieze. The Hepworth Wakefield has no acquisition budget, so funds like this offer a rare chance to research and select acquisitions which make a pivotal impact on the collection. We’re thrilled to be acquiring work by Haegue Yang and Nour Jaouda, artists whose work references contemporary politics – particularly questions of migration and belonging – through judicious choices of materials, a new twist on the idea of “truth to materials” that was at the heart of Barbara Hepworth’s practice. These acquisitions mark a significant shift towards the collection’s international ambitions, while connecting to Hepworth’s legacy.’
Eleanor Clayton, Head of Collection and Exhibitions at The Hepworth Wakefield
Founded in 2012, the Contemporary Art Society’s Collections Fund is designed to support the acquisition of significant contemporary works for Contemporary Art Society Museum members across the UK. A key aim of the scheme is to draw together the knowledge, experience and expertise of private collectors with that of museum curators in a programme of research leading to an acquisition. Two works by the women artists Haegue Yang and Nour Jaouda have been acquired through the CAS Collections Fund at Frieze 2024 for The Hepworth Wakefield. Both artists’ work references contemporary politics – particularly questions of migration and belonging – through the judicious choice of materials, a new twist on the idea of ‘truth to materials’ that was at the heart of Barbara Hepworth’s practice. These acquisitions mark a significant shift towards the collection’s international ambitions, while connecting to Hepworth’s legacy.
Haegue Yang’s wideranging multidisciplinary practice encompasses sculpture, installation, video and performance. Deploying industrial materials such as stainless steel, brass and metal rings, as well as materials from folk craftsmanship such as Korean hanji paper and hand-knitted yarn, her work refers to the cultures of both modern and pre-modern times. Her artistic vocabulary draws from a number of sources, from modern avant-garde movements in art history to literature, postcolonial thought and East Asian customs and folklore.
Sonic Gym – Milky Coiffured Cosmic Compression derives from the series Sonic Sculptures (2013–ongoing), in which many of the sculptural works are made of bells. A medium of both functional and ceremonial purpose, bells are found in various civilisations, from tribal societies to the modern era, adding a layer of mythic and ritualistic memory to Yang’s ambitious works. When rotated manually, the Sonic Gym sculptures produce unique visual patterns and acoustics, generating a sensorial visual experience.
Nour Jaouda, Dust that never settles, 2024, fabric dye and pigment on canvas, steel, 130 × 235 cm
Haegue Yang (b. 1971, Seoul, South Korea) lives and works between Seoul and Berlin.
Nour Jaouda’s largescale textile-based work stands at the threshold of painting and sculpture. Drawing inspiration from the textures and colours of her immediate surroundings in two cosmopolitan cities, her work is particularly inspired by the prayer mats seen ubiquitously in Egypt. Her work is intricately layered and fragmented, translating into abstract visual landscapes that evoke the meditative spaces of religious ritual.
The detail of the cut and tear symbolically draws out the tensions between destruction and creation, rupture and repair, while speaking more broadly to the fraught legacies of colonial history and modern-day geopolitics. The action and process of threading and rooting metaphorically speaks to a sense of displacement, uprooting or fabricating of the self. The textile work Dust that never settles (2024) is comprised of dyed fabrics and pigment on canvas. In dark, earthy hues as well as vibrant blues and ochre yellows, the work provides a visual cacophony of colour and texture.
Nour Jaouda (b. 1997, Cairo, Egypt) lives and works between London and Cairo.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Collections Fund at Frieze, 2024/2025
Text by Eleanor Clayton, Head of Collection and Exhibitions
With thanks to our Committee members: Charlotte Artus, Nicola Avery-Gee, Nicola Blake (Co-Chair), Liesl Fichardt (Co-Chair), Whitney Gore, Soo Hitchin, Stephanie Holmquist, Marcelle Joseph, Béatrice Lupton, Suling Mead, Minka Nyberg, Katrina Reitman and Pamela Stanger
Jaouda, Dust
settles, 2024,
Nour
that never
fabric dye and pigment on canvas, steel, 130 × 235 cm
The Hepworth Wakefield
Special Partnership with the Henry Moore Foundation and Cathy Wills
Tau Lewis, Lilith, 2024, steel, wood, enamel paint, acrylic paint, repurposed leather and suede, repurposed shearling, beads, stones and coated nylon thread, overall: 184.2 × 43.2 × 38.1 cm
The Contemporary Art Society has acquired a sculpture by Tau Lewis for The Hepworth Wakefield through a special partnership between the Henry Moore Foundation and the Contemporary Art Society, supported by Cathy Wills. The four-year scheme supports Leeds Art Gallery and The Hepworth Wakefield, which are both in Yorkshire, the UK’s centre for sculpture.
Tau Lewis transforms found materials into intricately detailed soft sculptures, quilts, masks and other assemblages through intensive processes such as hand sewing, carving and plaster casting. Lewis is a self-taught artist, and her work is directed at healing personal, collective and historical traumas through the repetitive forms of creative labour. She forages for materials and artefacts charged with meaning – previously worn clothing, fabrics, leather and photographs, as well as driftwood, sand dollars and seashells – that she often collects from her surroundings in Toronto, in New York or outside her family’s home in Negril, Jamaica. These evocative objects connect her work to the social, cultural and physical landscapes and histories that she moves through and inhabits. Lewis’s upcycling relates to forms of material inventiveness employed by diasporic communities, wherein working with things close at hand is a reparative act aimed at reclaiming agency. Throughout her work, Lewis’s interest is in honouring and advancing these diasporic traditions, and exploring, as she says, ‘the transference of energy and emotion that occurs when an object is made by hand’.
Lilith continues an ongoing sculptural bust series in which Lewis uses her recycled materials to depict imagined beings that act as spiritual conduits between the past, present and future. Here leather, shells, embroidery and beads are transformed into a speculative monument to Lilith. Lilith was a feminine figure in Mesopotamian and
The Hepworth Wakefield
Jewish mythology, theorised to be the first wife of Adam and a primordial she-demon. She is cited as having been banished from the Garden of Eden for not obeying Adam, hence in recent years she has become revered by contemporary feminists because she represents the power of choice and refuses to be shamed for wanting to be the person she is.
The Hepworth Wakefield’s collection celebrates the evolution of sculpture in the UK and internationally through the achievements of Barbara Hepworth, and it makes a point of recognising the work of women sculptors in particular. The acquisition of Lilith is impactful for the collection and audiences in many ways. Lilith joins – and will be displayed alongside – other recent acquisitions by women artists from the global majority, such as Bronwyn Katz, Mona Hatoum, Haegue Yang and Nour Jaouda, who use found materials and laborious creative processes to reclaim and retell diasporic traditions, stories and ideas of material inventiveness.
The work will also form strong points of dialogue when exhibited alongside other works that examine portraiture within the collection, from Barbara Hepworth and Eduardo Paolozzi to Maggi Hambling and Margaret Harrison. Lilith also provides inspiration for extensive learning programming, across practical sewing and embroidery workshops, and wider conversations and teaching around feminist histories and sculptural developments around the world.
Tau Lewis (b. 1993, Toronto, Canada) lives and works in New York.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through a Special Partnership with the Henry Moore Foundation, supported by Cathy Wills, 2024/25
Text by Eleanor Clayton, Head of Collection and Exhibitions and Laura Smith, Director of Collection and Exhibitions
Tau Lewis, Lilith, 2024, steel, wood, enamel paint, acrylic paint, repurposed leather and suede, repurposed shearling, beads, stones and coated nylon thread, overall: 184.2 × 43.2 × 38.1 cm
Touchstones Rochdale
Katrina Palmer
Katrina Palmer, The Touch Report, the bookcase (including its books and paper debris), 3 × A4 copies of The Touch Report in library binding, 210 × 170 × 30 cm
The Contemporary Art Society Partnership with the National Gallery, London
Katrina Palmer was selected as the fourth Artist in Residence since the launch of the National Gallery’s Modern and Contemporary Programme in 2019. During 2024, Palmer spent time within the National Gallery collection and presented her latest work in an intimate room, where the usual paintings on view were temporarily removed. Visitors were invited to enter a specially constructed reading room to engage with the artist’s new project, a book entitled The Touch Report Named after a National Gallery document maintained by the conservation team that records which artworks are physically touched while on public display, Palmer’s experimental writing within the book explores the fragile material conditions and perceived power of historical paintings, while addressing their violent and aggressive imagery. Reading the publication in the exhibition invites us to reconsider the National Gallery’s collection. The themes that emerge through the quiet, subversive act of reading are a method of accessing what is generally suppressed. Readers sit with what is hidden.
Katrina Palmer works with sculpture, audio environments, printed matter and performance. Known for investigations of sculptural materiality, Palmer works within landscapes that include quarries and coastal landscapes, and in a variety of institutional spaces such as offices and prisons. Through text and language she explores bodily vulnerabilities and histories of absence and dislocation.
Touchstones Rochdale have acquired for their collection three works made during the residency: The Touch Report and two films featured in the book. The film The Dark Readings Group documents a group that convened in the unlit galleries, reading passages of The Touch Report by torchlight. The film Longhand features the artist’s writing arm covered in a plaster sleeve and filmed in the National
Touchstones Rochdale
Katrina Palmer
Gallery artist-in-residence studio. The video addresses the awkwardness of the act of writing that was central to the creation of The Touch Report. The pathos of the encumbrance draws out the dark humour and physical frustrations of the attempt to recount every scene of a body in distress in the Gallery.
The three works by Katrina Palmer join an impressive and growing group of works by contemporary women artists that build on a commitment to address the gender imbalance within the collection while solidifying the gallery’s long-standing focus on art’s social and political relevance. This ongoing legacy, from the support of marginalised artists in the 1980s and ’90s to initiatives centred on meaningful collaboration and co-creation, draws inspiration from Rochdale’s history with the Cooperative movement, ensuring that the past informs the future.
Only recently has the gallery started to collect film, and these new additions link to other artists’ films including work by Helen Cammock, Jasleen Kaur and Hope Stickland.
Katrina Palmer (b. 1967, London, UK) lives and works in London.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through a partnership with the 2024 National Gallery Artist in Residence programme, with the support of Anna Yang and Joseph Schull, 2024/25
Also acquired for Touchstones Rochdale:
The Dark Readings Group, MP4 Video of the reading group featured in The Touch Report, 15:07 mins, edition 1 of 6
Longhand, MP4 Video of the writing arm featured in The Touch Report, 14:38 mins, edition 1 of 6
Katrina Palmer, The Touch Report, the bookcase (including its books and paper debris), 3 × A4 copies of The Touch Report in library binding, 210 × 170 × 30 cm
Text by Sarah Hodgkinson, Senior Curator, Exhibitions & Collections
‘CAS membership has been of much benefit to Pallant House Gallery, enabling the acquisition of ambitious contemporary works that we would struggle to acquire otherwise as we do not have dedicated acquisitions funding. With all acquisitions their impact on programmes and audiences is very important to approach, and how we seek to make Modern British art relevant to audiences today.’
‘The Contemporary Art Society has supported Sheffield’s acquisitions for over a hundred years and has been integral in the development of the city’s collection. Without an acquisitions budget the CAS has proved to be invaluable in ensuring that the city is able to continue to collect contemporary art, securing a vibrant and relevant collection for the future.’
Simon Martin, Director of Pallant House Gallery
Sian Brown, Head of Collections, Sheffield Museums
Birmingham Museums Trust
Su Richardson
Su Richardson is a leading figure in the British feminist art movement. As a founder member of the Birmingham Women’s Art Group, she was instrumental in co-ordinating the Postal Art Event, later known as Feministo, which took place across Britain in the mid-1970s. Organised with fellow artists Kate Walker, Monica Ross and others, the initiative aimed to connect women through the exchange of artworks by post. Later in the decade, Richardson, Ross and Walker collaborated on the collective feminist installation project Fenix. After time away from her art practice to raise her son, Richardson began exhibiting again in the 2010s. She is particularly known for her soft sculptures, which celebrate and subvert traditional crafts associated with women, especially crochet, to explore female experiences and identity.
Out of the Bag: self portrait aged 75 (2022) is the fifth in a series of life-size self-portraits created by Richardson over the past 50 years, probing the idea of self-image as a garment or skin: one that can be put on or stored away. The whole piece can be rolled up into its integral bag and carried, recalling Richardson’s earlier work Travelling Man with bag (1979–80). The concept of the bag is multilayered: bags are ubiquitous in women’s daily lives; they hold the things women need, and often their families’ things, too. But they also resonate with possibility –the freedom to pack yourself up and move on, and the unexpectedness of what may emerge ‘out of the bag’. For Richardson, this includes a sense of freedom around her own self-image that has evolved as a woman in her 70s.
The treatment of the nude in this piece continues the artist’s ongoing exploration of the female body as it changes over time. She commented in 2023: ‘Most of my work was done in the 1970s and slightly into the 1980s. I started making work again two years before lockdown and caught up on the experiences that my body had gone through in those forty years: premenstrual syndrome, pregnancy, stretch marks and menopause.’ Here the body is accompanied by three masks made earlier, during the Covid pandemic, referencing phases of the artist’s own life.
Su Richardson, Out of the Bag: self portrait aged 75, 2022, crochet cotton, lurex and wool, 190 × 40 cm
Birmingham Museums Trust
Su Richardson
Su Richardson, Out of the Bag: self portrait aged 75, 2022, crochet cotton, lurex and wool, 190 × 40 cm
Birmingham Museums worked in partnership with Ikon Gallery to research and select this acquisition for the city’s collection. The purchase of Out of the Bag has enabled Birmingham to represent an influential feminist artist associated with the city and will significantly strengthen its holdings of contemporary textile art.
Su Richardson (b. 1947, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, UK) lives and works in Birmingham.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, with support from the Public Picture Gallery Fund, Birmingham, 2024/25
Text by Victoria Osborne, Senior Curator (Art) and Daphne Chu, Curator, Ikon Gallery
Bradford District Museums & Galleries, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery
Emilie Taylor
Emilie Taylor uses heritage crafts, particularly traditional slipware, to interpret and represent postindustrial landscapes. Taylor is interested in the vessel or container as a metaphor for how we seek to contain community within British society. She has an ongoing interest in the firing process as alchemically potent and symbolic of change. Her work offers new interpretation to the contemporary urban context and its severance with ties to past community rituals. Large pieces and installations blur the boundaries between Fine Art and the anthropological elements of Craft.
The two newly commissioned works, Savage Ground I and Savage Ground II, will be displayed at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery during Bradford City of Culture 2025.
Taylor’s vessels draw inspiration from Bradford District Museums & Galleries’ (BDMG) collection and from communities local to Cartwright Hall Art Gallery. Visiting BDMG’s collection, Taylor saw artworks depicting women and children working in the landscape (in particular On the Dykes by William Lee Hankey, 1910), Realist paintings from the early 20th century and later architectural references in the work of local artists, such as David Hockney. She was also inspired by the slipware pottery made in the villages to the west of Bradford and now on display at Cliffe Castle Museum.
Reflecting on the sgraffito portraits of important men on the ceramics on display, Taylor added to the collection with new slipware depicting women at work, showing the important, everyday activities that are often overlooked.
Taylor worked with people at the Refugee and the Women’s allotments, part of Scotchman Road Allotments in Manningham, near Cartwright Hall, using this engagement to develop images of women working in the urban landscape today.
Emilie Taylor, Savage Ground I, 2024, slip decorated stoneware with lustre, 67 × 38 × 38 cm
Bradford District Museums & Galleries, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery
Emilie Taylor
BDMG seeks to acquire artworks by, or depicting the experiences of, groups typically under-represented in the museum collections. Taylor’s previous work with community groups and her focus on socially engaged practice made her an appealing artist to work with. Her proposal to engage with a local refugee allotment linked closely to BDMG’s priorities on both collecting and building relationships with communities. Works by women and representing the experiences of women in the collection are not in proportion to those by and of men, and there has been (until now) no representation of refugee experiences.
Taylor
Emilie Taylor, Savage Ground I, 2024, slip decorated stoneware with lustre, 67 × 38 × 38 cm
Emilie Taylor, Savage Ground II, 2024, slip decorated stoneware with lustre, 67 × 38 × 38 cm
Emilie
(b. 1980, Sheffield, UK) lives and works in Sheffield.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Tai Shani creates installation, performance, sculpture and moving image, often combining all four in a practice that blurs the boundaries of mediums, aesthetics and philosophy in meditations on radical feminist, non-binary utopias. Sources and influences range from the 15th-century text The Book of the City of Ladies, by Christine de Pizan, to the speculative fiction of Ursula Le Guin and Octavia Butler. Collaboration is fundamental to Shani’s practice, and she has worked with Florence Peake and the band Let’s Eat Grandma, among others.
The Neon Hieroglyph takes place on Alicudi near Sicily in the 1950s. Impoverished islanders were said to have collectively hallucinated a coven of witches, flying to the mainland to steal food. Some argue that the maiare (sorceresses) were female islanders. The islanders had eaten ergot, a hallucinogenic fungus that grows on rye. Ergot was also used by midwives to manage childbirth and even as a form of birth control. Taking this episode as her starting point, Tai Shani has created a new feminist speculative fiction.
Actor Molly Moody performs nine short monologues in the film, oscillating between storytelling and stream of consciousness, her face filmed in forensic focus, double-exposed from filmed recording to the softened yet hyperreal elaboration of computer-generated imagery (CGI). Shani layers horror tropes with tales of witchcraft and transgression, female empowerment and marginalisation (as Moody’s character says, ‘the spookiest of all fears, the fear of our powerlessness’). The CGI, foreboding soundtrack and gothic drama combine to suggest an alternative narrative. The stuff of nightmares is twisted into a dream of utopia as female fear, a standard horror cliché, is overturned: ‘we spell for revolution, we invoke the angels that course wildly in the elements’.
The Neon Hieroglyph engages with speculative models of what a feminist art for the 21st century could be. As Bristol Museum & Art Gallery seeks to decentre its programme and its collections, a comparison can be found with art practices such as Shani’s, which shift the focus away
Tai Shani, The Neon Hieroglyph, 2022, edition 1 of 3 plus 1 AP, 57 mins
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
Tai Shani
from the individualised genius of modernism towards collaboration and open acts of creativity. The Neon Hieroglyph extends the debate with audiences to a wider arena. Debuted at the Manchester International in 2021, The Neon Hieroglyph is Shani’s first moving image work to enter a British public collection.
Tai Shani (b. 1976, London, UK) lives and works in London.
Purchased with support from the Arts Council England / V&A Purchase Grant Fund, Contemporary Art Society and Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives, 2024/25
Text by Julia Carver, Curator, Art
Tai Shani, The Neon Hieroglyph, 2022, edition 1 of 3 plus 1 AP, 57 mins
Tanoa Sasraku is known for her ongoing research into her personal relationship with the memories, mythologies and energy stored within the British rural and coastal landscapes.
Sleeve Front L is part of Terratypes, a series of works on paper started in 2020, which can be described as sculptural hybrids of painting, drawing, collage and printmaking. This body of work continues the artist’s exploration of British geology and topography, informed by her perspective as a lesbian artist of British-Ghanaian background.
Her working process involves laborious pattern-cutting, drawing on her Ghanaian heritage. For example, the fringed border of the Terratypes resembles the textile application of the Fante Asafo flags of coastal Ghana. Each of Sasraku’s Terratypes comprises several sheets of blank newsprint, which she hand-stains with million-yearold earth pigments foraged from landscapes significant to her. She then machine-stitches the stacks of paper together before soaking them in rivers, seawater and bogs. After that, the artist carefully tears away strips of paper so layers beneath become visible, revealing the materiality and memory of the land, like microchips storing data.
Sleeve Front L features minerals she gathered in 2023 from the coast of Ghana, the home country of the artist’s late father, a couturier. Influenced by her experience of his passing during her teenage years in the West Country, the artist fuses red iron earth pigments collected from the mining regions of both Ghana and Cornwall. Using garment patterns, she reimagines her father’s body via the tools of his craft. The results are enigmatic, ceremonial-like objects, weathered by time and rich with material history.
During her unsettled youth in Plymouth, Sasraku found solace and a sense of freedom in the windswept moorlands of nearby Dartmoor. This deep connection to the landscape aligns with The Box’s art collection, which includes works depicting the local landscape as early as 1600. Sasraku’s work also resonates with the museum’s textiles collection, reflecting Plymouth’s significant but often overlooked history as a major hub for garment
Tanoa Sasraku, Sleeve Front L, 2023, newsprint, foraged Cornish and Ghanaian earth pigments, tailor’s chalk, fixative spray, thread, St Ives seawater, 94 × 58 × 4.5 cm
The Box, Plymouth
Tanoa Sasraku
production in the mid-20th century. Factories such as Dents, Jaeger, Clarks and Ladybird were once integral to the city’s economy, shaping the lives of thousands of workers. Additionally, Plymouth’s status as a naval centre fostered a strong tailoring tradition. Sasraku’s practice introduces fresh contemporary perspectives to The Box’s collections. While rooted in traditional textile techniques –such as stitching and layering – her approach integrates modern influences, including glitch aesthetics, computer technologies and circuitry. Sleeve Front L also explores themes of family, home and connection, offering a compelling narrative that will resonate with audiences and inspire new conversations.
Tanoa Sasraku (b. 1995, Plymouth, UK) lives and works in Glasgow.
Tanoa Sasraku, Sleeve Front L, 2023, newsprint, foraged Cornish and Ghanaian earth pigments, tailor’s chalk,
spray, thread, St Ives seawater, 94 × 58 × 4.5 cm
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of the Tia Collection, 2024/25
Photo by Jack Elliot Edwards. Portrait courtesy of the photographer
Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool
Garth Gratrix and Katie Paterson
Garth Gratrix, Mummy’s Boy, 2024, 2 × argon-filled 10 mm flamingo pink glass triangles. 2 × 990V high frequency 40 milliAmp Hansen Transformers, electrode sleeves, tube supports, wood, acrylic, cabling, 22.8 × 69 × 7.6 cm
Garth Gratrix (They/Them) is a visual artist, independent curator and founding director of Blackpool’s leading studio and project space – Abingdon Studios, established in 2013. Gratrix’s work navigates the intersections of materiality, identity and queerness, often drawing from coastal culture and everyday objects. Their practice remains in constant negotiation with space, material and meaning – engaging queerness as both a conceptual strategy and an inherent material condition. Their installations offer a balance between formal display and conceptual frolic.
The work pulses in a programmed Morse code sequence, spelling out ‘Mummy’s Boy’ – a phrase once used pejoratively, now reclaimed with pride. Deeply personal and politically resonant, the piece holds particular significance following the passing of the artist’s mother in March 2024.
Katie Paterson, The Moment, 2022, hand-blown glass with pre-solar material, to measure 15 minutes, no. 7 of a series of 10, plus 2 AP, 31 × 7.5 × 7.5 cm
A self-imposed rule, ‘nine inches apart together away repeat’, underpins Gratrix’s approach. This structuring device dictates spatial relationships between elements, introducing a measured rhythm of proximity and distance, intimacy and separation. It queers perceived logics of minimalism and abstraction, turning formal restraint into a site of coded desire and latent movement. Materials in Gratrix’s work are chosen for their ability to hold tension –between weight and softness, resilience and vulnerability.
Mummy’s Boy was commissioned by Queer Amusements and presented in Gratrix’s solo exhibition, ‘Flamboyant Flamingos’ at Grundy Art Gallery in summer 2024.
Created in flamingo pink glass, it explores abstraction, coded language and transformation. Two nine-inch equilateral triangles, positioned in opposing orientations, reference the historical use of the pink triangle – first as a symbol of persecution during World War II and later reclaimed as an emblem of queer liberation.
The acquisition of Mummy’s Boy by Garth Gratrix supports Grundy Art Gallery’s work to widen and deepen representation in the collection by artists from the LGBTQ+ community. It also speaks to Grundy’s work on creating opportunities for artists from Blackpool and Fylde Coast to develop their practice through commissions of new work and exhibitions of scale – leading to increased recognition and an expanded public and professional profile. Mummy’s Boy will join print- and textile-based works by Gratrix acquired into Grundy’s collection in 2020, demonstrating Grundy’s commitment to ensure that, wherever possible, the breadth of an artist’s practice is collected.
The ‘light’-specific element of Gratrix’s work expands Grundy Art Gallery’s focus on commissioning, curating and collecting work by artists who use light as a material within their work. It will see Mummy’s Boy sit in the Grundy Collection alongside work by Andrea Buttner, Tony Heaton (OBE), Tracey Emin, Joseph Kosuth and Mark Titchner among many others. The acquisition also creates a legacy within the collection of Gratrix’s largest and most significant solo exhibition to date.
Garth Gratrix (b. 1984, Blackpool, UK) lives and works in Blackpool.
by the Contemporary Art Society, the Arts Council England / V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Grundy
Collaborating with leading scientists and researchers across the world, Katie Paterson produces poetic and conceptual projects that consider our place on earth in the context of geological time and change. Her artworks make use of sophisticated technologies and specialist expertise to stage intimate, poetic and philosophical engagements between people and their natural environment.
The Moment is a time-piece filled with star dust – the fossilised remnants of a time before the earth was formed. The glass (which measures 15 minutes of time) includes the most ancient material to exist on earth, from a time from before the sun, crushed to a fine powder and contained within hand-blown glass. Included is material brought to earth from exploding stars as well as remnants from asteroids, fragments of lunar meteorites, Martian dust and rocks that have travelled for millions of miles.
Paterson’s The Moment will therefore join recent acquisitions of work by Shezad Dawood and RA Walden, whose neonbased works speak respectively of rising tides and non-normative timekeeping. The universality of the themes being explored in The Moment means that the work is relevant to all, providing a relatable point of access into everyday conversations, as well as more complex ones. Additionally, the form of Paterson’s work will expand Grundy’s contemporary sculpture collection, which also includes work by Gilbert & George, Laura Ford and Allison Katz, among others. While this is the first acquisition of work by Paterson into Grundy’s collection, it does build upon previous interaction with the artist. In 2019, the Grundy was one of several national partners to host Paterson’s participatory project, First There is a Mountain, which saw an intergenerational community group build sandcastles on Blackpool beach using artist-designed buckets and spades.
Katie Paterson (b. 1981, Glasgow, Scotland) lives and works in Fife, Scotland.
Supported by the Contemporary Art Society, the Arts Council England / V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Grundy Art Gallery, 2024/25
Katie Paterson, The Moment, 2022, hand-blown glass with pre-solar material, to measure 15 minutes, no. 7 of a series of 10, plus 2 AP, 31 × 7.5 × 7.5 cm
Garth Gratrix, Mummy’s Boy, 2024, 2 × argon-filled 10 mm flamingo pink glass triangles. 2 × 990V high frequency 40 milliAmp Hansen Transformers, electrode sleeves, tube supports, wood, acrylic, cabling, 22.8 × 69 × 7.6 cm
Katie Paterson is widely regarded as an artist working at the forefront of her generation. The acquisition of The Moment supports Grundy Art Gallery’s work to ensure that the Collection honours the Grundy’s founding principle, ‘to show the best art of the day’. The content of the work adds to the Grundy’s emerging interest in collecting works that mark, measure and explore the concept of time as well as works that, on varying levels, open out into wider conversations about the climate emergency and the future of the planet.
Charmaine Watkiss creates narratives, or ‘memory stories’, through research connected to the African-Caribbean diaspora, which is then mapped onto female figures, often using her own likeness to explore themes of resilience and empowerment. Her practice addresses themes including ritual, tradition, ancestry, mythology and cosmology, often explored through the language of plants and their properties. In particular, Watkiss has been investigating the herbal healing traditions of Caribbean women; especially those of her mother’s generation and connecting those traditions through colonisation back to their roots in Africa.
The knowledge pool is from a series of new works created for her solo show Legacy which was on show at Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal, in 2024. The work has been informed by her extensive research into historic botanical collections, including a recent fellowship responding to the work of naturalist, physician and slave-owner Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). Considering today’s urgent ecological crises, the work acts as a reminder of the perpetual loss of biodiversity and cultural diversity, while emphasising the importance of both to our future survival. Watkiss’ interaction with plants and nature not only speaks to our need to exist more harmoniously with nature, but also chimes with the situation of the Holburne Museum locally. It is surrounded by nature in its position at the entrance to the only surviving Georgian pleasure gardens in the UK, where, in the 18th century, health visitors would come to the city to ‘take the waters’ and walk in the gardens.
The work also resonates with themes found within the museum itself, which at its heart contains the collection of Sir Thomas William Holburne (1793–1874). This was left as a bequest to form ‘the nucleus of a Museum of Art for the city of Bath’. In recent years, particular consideration has been given to acquiring works which help to explore histories that have previously been underrepresented in the collection and to better connect the historic collection with contemporary art and culture. This includes a commitment to exploring the histories and legacies of the Holburne’s connections to colonisation
Charmaine Watkiss, The knowledge pool, 2024, water-soluble graphite, pencil, watercolour, colour pencil and Reckitts Blue on paper, 76 × 56 cm
The Holburne Museum, Bath
Charmaine Watkiss
and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. William Holburne’s ancestors were involved in the plantation economy of the Caribbean, which entailed the use of enslaved labour, and both Holburne himself and, later, the Museum benefitted financially from that involvement. The addition of The knowledge pool to the Holburne’s collections helps to explore these troubling histories while also celebrating cultural legacies and endurance.
Charmaine Watkiss (b. 1964, London, UK) lives and works in London.
Charmaine Watkiss, The knowledge pool, 2024, water-soluble graphite, pencil, watercolour, colour pencil and Reckitts Blue on paper, 76 × 56 cm
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with support of Bianca Roden, 2024/25
Vicken Parsons, Christiane Baumgartner, Emma Stibbon
Vicken Parsons makes intimate paintings of landscapes and architectural spaces, applying thin layers of paint to small wood panels. Some of her subjects are remembered ones, while others are imagined. She began painting small pictures temporarily, for practical reasons, but found she much preferred this way of working and the minute control it allowed her. The unusual scale of her work has now become a defining feature. These little pictures are quietly intriguing and seem to invite close looking. However, her subjects also suggest a scale greater than what is shown, inviting us to step into an imagined space beyond the edges of the panel itself.
The intimate and elusive Untitled is one of a number of skyscapes Parsons has completed. It is dominated by a heavy dark cloud hovering above, with blue sky seen below. Parsons has spoken of the sky as layered with various types of cloud structures creating vastness and depth. She has noted that the sky itself is limitless, but within a painting it is not – so she has to work to create a sense of expansiveness within the painting itself.
The Laing Art Gallery has a significant collection of British landscape paintings by artists including John Martin, Laura Knight, David Bomberg and Anne Redpath. These range in scale from diminutive to monumental, and in period from the 18th century to the present day, but contemporary approaches are not well
represented. Vicken Parsons’s Untitled offers a fresh way of thinking about landscape in relation to space and the act of painting itself. The picture will add a new dimension to the Laing’s permanent displays and temporary exhibitions while also reflecting the gallery’s long-term activity in addressing the gender imbalance of the collection.
Christiane Baumgartner, Totes Meer, 2020, woodcut on Misumi Japanese paper, paper: 59 × 45.5 cm, edition 9 of 14
Vicken Parsons (b. 1957, Hertfordshire, UK) lives and works in London.
Vicken Parsons, Untitled, 2022, oil on wood, 25 × 29 cm
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Vicken Parsons, Christiane Baumgartner, Emma Stibbon
Christiane Baumgartner and Emma Stibbon each pursue experimental printmaking practices that combine traditional handmade techniques with the use of modern technology. Each also makes work that includes a significant focus on landscape combined with contemporary conceptual concerns.
The two-colour print Totes Meer is a striking example of Baumgartner’s woodcuts, her best-known works. She makes these prints, some of which are monumental in scale, by transferring computer-edited images from her own photographs and video stills onto large wood blocks.
She then laboriously hand-cuts the blocks until they are ready to be hand-printed. The resulting effect blends a digital aesthetic derived from video with the handmade physicality of woodcut, one of the most historic printmaking techniques of all, and one with a particularly rich heritage in the artist’s native Germany.
Broken Terrain and Reynisdrangar reflect
Totes Meer, which portrays a sunrise over the Dead Sea, is the first print by a contemporary German artist to enter the Laing’s collection, where it finds new dialogues with British landscape watercolours and prints, and – in terms of technique – in relation to the gallery’s collection of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.
Emma Stibbon’s interest in capturing extreme and fragile landscapes that are undergoing transformations. Her working practice includes time spent researching places on location, often alongside geologists and scientists. These works reflect her interest in the potential of printmaking, which she sees as an extension of her drawing practice, to create multilayered images with an element of spontaneity.
At the Laing, these dramatic scenes join a wider collection of works on paper that, with the Laing’s extensive historic British holdings, reflect ideas of the sublime and awe-inspiring landscape that particularly resonates with Stibbon’s practice. The artist’s contemporary concerns with the threat to places facing climate change are also ripe for exploration in the Laing’s future exhibitions and displays.
Christiane Baumgartner (b. 1967, Leipzig, Germany) lives and works in Leipzig.
Emma Stibbon (b. 1962, Münster, Germany) lives and works in Bristol.
Vicken Parsons, Untitled, 2022, oil on wood, 25 × 29 cm
Christiane Baumgartner, Totes Meer, 2020, woodcut on Misumi Japanese paper, paper: 59 × 45.5 cm, edition 9 of 14
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Jemisha Maadhavji draws from bold colours, patterns, fabric, fashion and nature. Her practice is informed by symbolism and narrative, depicting individuals with different lived experiences situated in vibrant settings and spaces. Her paintings capture character and emotion prompting us to question what beauty is. To date, Maadhavji explores themes of desire and luxury. Her works are predominantly oil on canvas, created by applying multiple thin and delicate layers, and sometimes finished with thickly textured paint, in instances where it is important that the viewer is conscious of the material’s physical presence.
If I Were a Flower, part of a series called Desires Never Desire, is a self-portrait created during the lockdown with dye and watercolour on paper. The artist imagines herself as a flower that grows from the gathering of the patterns from an oriental rug and is inspired by an Indian miniature painting she saw when visiting the exhibition Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company at the Wallace Collection in 2020.
Flowers are used for every occasion – printed on furniture, fabrics and wallpaper, and gifted on birthdays, celebrations, weddings and funerals. Maadhavji is interested in the question of why flowers are used everywhere and what makes them so special and precious.
Flowers do not expect appraisals, attention or to be watered, and criticism doesn’t affect them. They stand in every circumstance whether it is strong winds, rain or heat.
Jemisha Maadhavji, If I Were a Flower, 2020, dye and watercolour on paper, 30 × 20 cm
A flower blooms and emits a fragrance equally for all! It feels as though the flower is in a ‘meditative zone’, yet a flower has no arrogance about its beauty and importance. Not just that but in Asia – particularly in India – flowers have huge importance in ceremonies and spiritual purposes. Maybe it is the nature of the flowers that
Emma Stibbon, Broken Terrain, 2017, intaglio print on Somerset Satin white 300 gsm paper, 67 × 80 cm, edition 22 of 40
Emma Stibbon, Reynisdrangar, 2016, Intaglio print on Somerset Satin white 300 gsm paper, 60.7 × 81.7 cm, edition 26 of 30
makes them so celebrated! The flowers seem like they are in a meditative state, in which nothing around them matters. ‘I feel the flower’ is a perfect example of how we as humans should be living, blissfully.
Jemisha Maadhavji is a figurative painter based in Leicester, who graduated from the city’s De Montfort University. She explores individuals from different cultural backgrounds, personalities and gender. Leicester Museums & Galleries have chosen to collect Jemisha’s work in order to add to the increasingly diverse collection which is reflective of the diversity of the city as a whole. Works by both local and female artists are a strong collecting strand within the service’s collecting remit, and Jemisha’s self-portrait adds to a small but increasingly strong group of self-portraits by female artists.
Jemisha Maadhavji (b. 1996, Leicester, UK) lives and works in Leicester.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Leicester Museum & Galleries, 2024/25
Jemisha Maadhavji, If I Were a Flower, 2020, dye and watercolour on paper, 30 × 20 cm
Emma Stibbon, Broken Terrain, 2017, intaglio print on Somerset Satin white 300 gsm paper, 67 × 80 cm, edition 22 of 40
Emma Stibbon, Reynisdrangar, 2016, Intaglio print on Somerset Satin white 300 gsm paper, 60.7 × 81.7 cm, edition 26 of 30
de
Jade de Montserrat works across performance, drawing, painting, film, installation, sculpture, print and text. Concerned with challenging structures of care in institutions and exploring the intersection of gender, race, class and colonialism – often in the context of rural communities – she creates artworks that examine the vulnerability of bodies, the importance of recording and preserving history, and the tactile and sensory qualities of language. De Montserrat’s practice is research-led, excavating shared histories while also delving into her personal narrative.
The depiction of Afro hair in Simply / necessarily pass through is subversively humorous, conjuring the powerful possibilities of unruly female desire and abundant curls. Mounds appear in several of de Montserrat’s drawings, symbolising or becoming interchangeable with a head of Afro hair. She depicts her hair entangled with various rural landscapes, employing visual slippage between her body and the environments in which she grew up. In Yorkshire, for example, the wooded hill seen from her childhood window transforms into an Afro.
All, Everything, Representation depicts the eyes of Tarana Burke, the founder of the ‘Me Too’ movement. A prominent survivor and activist for racial, economic, and gender equality, Burke’s presence in de Montserrat’s work underscores a commitment to bearing witness and making sense of injustices. Through this drawing, de Montserrat seeks to humanise and give voice to those who have faced oppression.
The drawing And ain’t I a woman? combines the title of Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech with the colours of the Progress Pride flag. By placing these images together, the artist provokes questions about how past freedom fighters can inform contemporary struggles. Truth, born into slavery,
Jade de Montserrat, And ain’t I a woman?, 2023, watercolour, ink, gouache, pencil on paper, 39.7 × 30.7 cm All, everything, representation, 2024, watercolour, pencil crayon, pencil, fountain pen, ballpoint pen on paper, 42.7 × 52.8 cm
Jade
Montserrat, Simply / necessarily pass through (double-sided), 2016, watercolour, gouache, pencil, pencil crayon, ink, graphite on paper, 49.2 × 39.4 cm
escaped and spoke powerfully about her experiences while advocating for women’s equality. The Progress Pride flag, designed by non-binary artist Daniel Quasar in 2018, incorporates colours representing trans and LGBTQI+ communities of colour, calling for greater inclusivity. With And ain’t I a woman? de Montserrat is asking questions such as: Who is truly free to be themselves today?
These acquisitions of Jade de Montserrat works are significant for Leicester Museums & Galleries as they contribute to a more inclusive and representative collection. De Montserrat’s work not only diversifies the narratives presented within the museum but also aligns with its commitment to reflecting the demographic realities of Leicester’s population. By incorporating these works, the museum strengthens its ability to engage with contemporary social issues, ensuring that its collection remains relevant both now and for future generations. These pieces serve as a testament to the times we live in, offering a lens through which audiences can examine and understand pressing issues of identity, race and belonging.
And
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Text by Heather Southorn, Collections Manager
All, everything, representation, 2024, watercolour, pencil crayon, pencil, fountain pen, ballpoint pen on paper, 42.7 × 52.8 cm
Jade de Montserrat, Simply / necessarily pass through (double-sided), 2016, watercolour, gouache, pencil, pencil crayon, ink, graphite on paper, 49.2 × 39.4 cm
Jade de Montserrat,
ain’t I a woman?, 2023, watercolour, ink, gouache, pencil on paper, 39.7 × 30.7 cm
One of today’s most prominent and influential figures in media art and film, Sir Isaac Julien creates compelling multiscreen film installations, documentaries, and photography that explore Black and queer histories and identities. He was a co-founder of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective which is dedicated to developing an independent black film culture. His work aims to break down the barriers between artistic disciplines to create powerful visual narratives. This image is one of a series from his mesmerising film True North (2005), which focusses on a bleak, but sublime arctic landscape. It is a landscape in which Dundee’s maritime history is intertwined and which has seduced scientists, explorers, writers and visual artists.
re-examine it in terms of race and gender by casting Henson as a black woman. She, a lone, fur-clad figure, retraces Henson’s steps across the frozen white landscape. The work develops Julien’s longstanding consideration of diaspora, globalisation and the movement of people.
Dundee has a long association with polar exploration, and we have a historic collection of artworks created by amateur artists who headed to the polar regions as crew members on whaling or research ships. This work highlights a hidden history in the exploration of the Arctic and provides a valuable context to a growing collection of contemporary work relating to Dundee’s polar history. The image that we have selected – in which a black woman stands with fur-lined hat and jacket – provides a contemporary counterpoint to the many photographs we hold of white, male Dundee whalers in their informal uniform of fur-lined hat and white jacket. We are delighted to have been able to acquire this work with the support of the Contemporary Art Society and the Scottish National Fund for Acquisitions.
Zina Saro-Wiwa, The Mangrove Banquet Recipes, 2015, screenprint on perspex, each panel: 71 × 109 cm
The photographs from True North Series offer a fragmented narrative about the discovery of the geographic North Pole. The work is loosely inspired by the Black American explorer Matthew Henson (1866–1955), who worked for and collaborated with the white explorer Robert Peary (1856–1920). Henson was one of the first people to reach the North Pole but, despite writing an account of his experiences, his achievements were contested and erased by prejudice that attributed the achievement, and the fame that went with it, to Peary. In True North, the vast, icy landscapes and the struggling, meandering figure stand in stark contrast to the typical heroic male narrative of exploration and discovery. Julien opens up the history of polar exploration to
Isaac Julien, IJ 61 photograph from True North Series, 2004, digital print on Epson Premium Photo Glossy, edition 6 of 6, 115 × 115 cm
Sir Isaac Julien KBE, CBE, RA (b. 1960, London, UK) lives and works in London and Santa Cruz, California.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with support of National Fund for Acquisitions, 2024/25
Text by Anna Robertson, Fine and Applied Art Manager
Zina Saro-Wiwa’s interdisciplinary practice spans video, photography, sculpture, sound and social practice projects. Her work focuses on expanding our understanding of environmentalism, implicating and exploring the idea of invisible ecosystems and reimagining a 21st-century concept of indigeneity. SaroWiwa examines the interconnected cultural, political, ecological, spiritual and economic dimensions of life in the oil-cursed Niger Delta region of Nigeria where she was born, revealing how these elements shape the region’s identity and future. She is the founder of Mangrove Arts Foundation, a notfor-profit organisation that uses art and food initiatives and environmental research to regenerate and reimagine the Niger Delta.
Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum
Saro-Wiwa’s printed texts are instructions for preparing dishes and describe the historical and social relationships that underpin them. They are printed onto Perspex, the bright orange colour of which references the hue of raw palm oil. Her choice of Perspex – a petroleum-based material – makes a direct link to the crude oil that is extracted from the Ogoniland by global corporations. The title references the mangrove tree, vital to the Niger Delta’s biodiversity, as it prevents soil erosion and supports wildlife.
MIMA, Middlesbrough Zina Saro-Wiwa
The Mangrove Banquet is a series of recipes that reveal Saro-Wiwa’s personal memories and associations through invented dishes from Ogoniland. It begins with an appeal to an apparently indifferent embodied spirit of the land and exposes the broader entanglements of the Niger Delta with the rest of the world through her personal experiences. The Niger Delta is an oilproducing area that has endured decades of exploitation by Western oil companies, resulting in ecological devastation, corruption and violence.
By focusing on the intimate act of recipemaking and sharing food, it highlights the stories, lore and cultural wealth that truly represent the Ogoni people. For Saro-Wiwa, her work is about promoting soil over oil and challenging the misuse and misrepresentation of this place and its people.
The Mangrove Banquet was featured in MIMA’s 2019 major group exhibition Fragile Earth, which explored the themes of labour, extraction, ecology and food production, examining relationships between people and land. These themes resonate with numerous works in the Middlesbrough Collection, including pieces by Lawson Oyekan, Otobong Nkanga and Veronica Ryan. The Middlesbrough Collection is central in MIMA’s learning and engagement work. MIMA’s team and collaborators will engage with Saro-Wiwa’s work to develop storytelling and activate enquiry around local, national and international topics. As part of Teesside University, MIMA plays a vital role in research and education, utilising the collection as a resource for students and researchers. As such, the work will remain readily accessible for in-depth study into the future.
Zina Saro-Wiwa (b. 1976, Port Harcourt, Nigeria) lives and works between Los Angeles, the UK and Port Harcourt.
Isaac Julien, IJ 61 photograph from True North Series, 2004, digital print on Epson Premium Photo Glossy, edition 6 of 6, 115 × 115 cm
Zina Saro-Wiwa, The Mangrove Banquet Recipes, 2015, screenprint on perspex, each panel: 71 × 109 cm
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with support of MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, 2024/25
Text by Helen Welford, Exhibitions and Collection Curator
Billy Dosanjh is an artist whose work spans film and photography, focusing on themes of displacement and the human experience within industrial settings. He was born and raised in Smethwick in the West Midlands, and his artistic narrative is deeply rooted in the deindustrialised factory towns of the Black Country, which saw an influx of manual labourers in the 1960s, many from the British colonies of South Asia. Trained as a filmmaker, Billy applies cinematic techniques such as elaborate sets, costume, props, lighting, casts and crew to choreograph these compelling images, each drawing on personal histories and memories; they are stories of struggle and survival set against a context of upheaval, violence and hope.
His practice poetically humanises the experiences of displaced individuals, emphasising the generational impacts of these experiences. Billy’s work transcends mere documentation; it delves into the emotional and psychological landscapes of those who navigate the complexities of identity and belonging in postindustrial environments.
Both Seamstress and Furnacemen are from a series of six works entitled The Exiles. The title of the series comes from a 1961 documentary by Kent MacKenzie which observes a day in the life of a group of native Americans who leave reservation life in the 1950s to move to a decaying district of Los Angeles. Both images present South Asian migrants at work. In Seamstress, our eyes are led to the central character who looks at the portrait of Guru Nanak, a significant spiritual teacher who many believe to have founded Sikhism. As we continue to look, more women emerge from the darkness. The central performer wears clothes and jewellery that belonged to her late mother, who worked in sewing factories when she arrived in the UK. In Furnacemen, a group of men sit on the ground,
Billy Dosanjh, Seamstress, 2022, giclée print, 110 × 135 cm, edition 1 of 5
Billy Dosanjh, Furnacemen, 2022, giclée print, 110 × 135 cm, edition 1 of 5
The New Art Gallery Walsall
Billy Dosanjh
largely disengaged from their gesticulating foreman. The scene speaks of segregation and alienation while we can almost feel the overwhelming heat from the furnace.
Black Country artist Billy Dosanjh has drawn on his lived experience and the rich and vibrant stories told by his family and community to explore what happens when cultures merge and to create a visual vernacular for a history that has inextricably shaped the West Midlands for ever. Members of the local community have shared their stories and participated as both cast and crew alongside specialist individuals to create these epic ‘single shot movies’. These stories need to be preserved and represented. The themes of work, industrial heritage and inclusivity as well as representation and content of local interest are all pertinent to New Art Gallery Walsall’s continued museum acquisitions.
Billy Dosanjh (b. 1981, Smethwick, UK) lives and works in London.
by the Contemporary
Billy Dosanjh, Seamstress, 2022, giclée print, 110 × 135 cm, edition 1 of 5
Billy Dosanjh, Furnacemen, 2022, giclée print, 110 × 135 cm, edition 1 of 5
Godfried Donkor is a mixed-media and multidisciplinary artist interested in the socio-historical relationships of Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. He is well-known for his collages using newspaper and gold leaf in a religious-like imagery. Over many years he has researched representation of the black body in archival material, and this underpins his work. The series Battle Royale II: Pantheon of Champions is a group of paintings which refer to the dynamic and colourful public spaces and fighting arenas of Jamestown, Accra, where these ‘boxing gods’ developed. The history of boxing is deeply connected to the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism, and, as such, this series invites us to consider notions of individual and collective power.
St Azumah Nelson shows Ghanaian boxing legend Azumah Nelson presented on a gold leaf background, literally as an icon.
A Ghanaian former professional boxer who competed from 1979 to 2008. Azumah Nelson has been described as the greatest boxer to come out of Africa. Born in 1958, the year after his home nation of Ghana gained independence, he played a major part in putting this new country on the world map. A glittering amateur career saw him win every title except an Olympic medal, as Ghana boycotted the 1980 Games when he was a favourite to win. After turning professional, he took a last-minute bout for the world title with the great Salvador Sanchez, a bout that changed his life. Although he lost on a 15th-round technical
knockout, it brought him to the attention of the international boxing community. Two years later, in 1984, he won the WBC Featherweight World Title. Like many champions, he rose from humble beginnings, suffered tragedy along the way but won and remained a world champion at featherweight and super featherweight for eleven years. Very few champions have carried such a burden of expectation, and Azumah delivered success at a time when his country needed a hero. He never faltered and won the respect of many across the world.
Sport can be a good access point for people who do not see themselves as knowledgeable about art. During a studio visit with the artist, it became clear that the aims of Oldham Boxing and Personal Development Club (OBPDC), with whom Gallery Oldham have previously worked, are very similar to those of the Ghanian boxing gyms – providing structure and a code of living for young men and women. St Azumah Nelson will strongly resonate in Oldham –with OBPDC, who took a group of their young members to Accra in 2018, as well as the wider public.
Godfried Donkor (b. 1964, Accra, Ghana) lives and works in Accra and London.
Mohammed Sami, The Mountain, 2023, acrylic on linen, 85.5 × 74 cm
Godfried Donkor, St Azumah Nelson, 2023,
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Rob Suss, the Company of Art Scholars Charitable Trust and Gallery 1957, 2024/25
Text by Rebecca Hill, Senior Collections & Exhibitions Officer
Mohammed Sami’s paintings explore the phenomenon of belated memory, using literary devices such as allegory and euphemism to create scenes with double meanings, leaving the viewer to make conclusions from their own experience. Referring to his own memory, Sami deploys painting in order to articulate universal themes of conflict, violence and loss. Rather than presenting a conventional image of trauma, Sami’s semi-abstract compositions and textured handling of paint create an ambiguous space between the original event and its recollection within the painting.
The Mountain (2023) was originally exhibited at Blenheim Palace as part of the artist’s solo exhibition in 2024. The Palace – a gift from Queen Anne to the First Duke of Marlborough in recognition of his triumph at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and the ancestral home of the Churchill family – represents a monument to the glory of war. Through their elusive evocation of loss, trauma and pain, Sami’s paintings disrupted this space of conquest, evoking presence through absence. The composition of The Mountain is deliberately jarring, presenting a viewpoint that seems too close and challenges our perception of what is real and what is artifice. Many of the objects in Sami’s paintings at Blenheim look like two things at once; a chandelier or a drone, a shadow or faded surface left by a removed picture frame. His titles are important, often providing a further layer of interpretation. While The Mountain could allude to the landscape, the form within the painting, which is made up of dabs of various shades of green and brown, could also be seen as a pile of rubble; detritus that is left behind.
The Mountain provides a poignant complement to existing works within the Gallery’s collection, particularly those that explore conflict and war such as Paul Nash’s Skylight Landscape (1941);
Henry Moore’s drawings of people sheltering in the Underground during the Blitz (c. 1940s); Keith Vaughan’s Burning Buildings (1944); and later wartime works by Peter Howson and Joyce Cairns. Sami’s evocation of the land through texture and semi-abstract elements could also be seen within the context of works by Prunella Clough and Michael Andrews, for whom the passage of time and memory are also key concerns.
Mohammed Sami (b. 1984, Baghdad, Iraq) lives and works in London.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Liesl Fichardt, 2024/25
by Miriam O’Connor Perks, Curator
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester Mohammed Sami
Godfried Donkor, St Azumah Nelson, 2023,
Mohammed Sami, The Mountain, 2023, acrylic on linen, 85.5 × 74 cm
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent Shaqúelle Whyte
Walking the landscapes of the world – from the Sahara Desert to Orkney – Richard Long creates work that evokes experiences of time, place and ideas. His work begins and ends with a journey, created from walking and the materials that are immediately to hand – mud, water, stones. In his own words, ‘I use the world as I find it.’ Long investigates the connectedness between nature and the reality of the human experience by surrendering to the power and presence of the natural world, resulting in art forms which settle as an expression, without interference or manipulation, as another layer on the surface of the world.
Shaqúelle Whyte, Kevin, you’re next, 2024, oil on canvas, two parts, 70 × 140 cm
The circle is a fundamental framework within Long’s work –it is a consciousness and an archetypal symbol of human endeavour. Walking is his trademark, and the circle – the path – has meaning in all cultures, from its most practical to its most spiritual sense. Walking a Circle on Hoy (Along a Four Day Walk, Orkney), was made on the island of Hoy, Orkney in 1992, and exhibited at the Pier Arts Centre during the summer of 1994. Both the work and the walk began as an idea, before a map was purchased and closely studied to consider the practicalities. A circle was drawn to intersect the ‘H’ and ‘Y’ in the centre of the map – this Long described as a purely aesthetic decision. And according to Long, the route was travelled easily and with great joy. The work of art – the map – exists to honour time past and time present, the visible and the invisible, part of an energetic cycle of beginning, ending, and receiving.
The acquisition of Richard Long’s Walking a Circle on Hoy echoes the energetic cycles of its making and existence –a homecoming, which connects beginning to end, past to future, within the here and now of the gallery walls of the Pier Arts Centre.
Richard Long (b. 1945, Bristol, UK) lives and works in Bristol.
Acquired in 2024 with support from Art Fund, the Contemporary Art Society, and assistance from the Friends of the Pier Arts Centre
Text by Kari Adams, Associate Curator (Collection & Exhibitions)
Richard Long, Walking a Circle on Hoy (Along a Four Day Walk, Orkney), 1992, survey map on card with chalk and graphite, 80.6 × 111.1 cm
Populated with expressive characters, Shaqúelle Whyte’s paintings vividly combine an energetic use of colour with his own memories and experiences, to give shape to imagined narratives unfolding before the viewer. Employing loose and dynamic brush strokes, his painterly expression of the human form, colour, light and shade has been compared to the techniques of Old Masters, such as Tintoretto and Rembrandt, as well as exemplars of Modernism, such as Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon.
Whyte often utilises familiar contemporary settings in the compositions of his paintings, evoking a mise en scène from a film storyboard or comic strip. A sense of this is especially heightened in Kevin, you’re next, a diptych presenting two visual perspectives on a street fight. The simmering tensions underlying the horseplay that quickly turns into physical aggression between the young protagonists are deftly articulated through zooming in and out, the focus shifting between close-up wrestling limbs and tense observation.
Richard Long, Walking a Circle on Hoy (Along a Four Day Walk, Orkney), 1992, survey map on card with chalk and graphite, 80.6 × 111.1 cm
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery holds a diverse collection of British art, ranging from the 18th century to the present day. It includes prints, drawings and sculpture, with a strong representation of Expressionist and realist British 20th-century art and contemporary paintings. The acquisition of Kevin, you’re next by Shaqúelle Whyte is a superb contribution to this strand of the collection and the evolving story of British art across different art movements and periods represented within the wider fine art collection.
Shaqúelle Whyte (b. 2000, Wolverhampton, UK) lives and works in London.
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent Shaqúelle Whyte
Shaqúelle Whyte, Kevin, you’re next, 2024, oil on canvas, two parts, 70 × 140 cm
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Christoph and Pamela Stanger, 2024/25
Delaine Le Bas is a contemporary artist who works across various media in a transdisciplinary way: she combines visual art, performative and literary practices to explore her own background and heritage as a Rom*nja person. A Turner Prize nominee in 2024, she was part of the Roma Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. In 2023 she curated The House of Le Bas, an exhibition exploring the practice of herself and her late artist husband, Damian Le Bas, for Whitechapel Gallery.
My mother said, that I never should, play with the Gypsies in the wood is a textile piece that explores the internalised prejudices against Rom*nja she experienced growing up as a child in Worthing. It includes pop culture references and appliqué designs in a way that references folk-art and the outsider art movements, as well as her own personal experiences and internal relationship with her heritage. Delaine has previously worked on a display within Brighton Museum titled Queer the Pier – looking at the decolonisation of the Rom*nja experience within the queer experience. As such, her practice feels deeply rooted and connected to the area, acting both as a critique of the South Coast and as a love letter to her continued relationship with it. Delaine’s hometown of Worthing, while distinct from Brighton, is an important neighbouring town, with many people living and commuting across the two. Delaine has a close connection to Brighton because from when she was a small child she visited her Uncle Eddie there with her Nan. He had lived there from the mid-1960s, and alongside her Nan was a major supporter of Delaine’s desire to do what she wanted.
Brighton Museum was particularly keen to have her work represented in the collection, given Le Bas’s strong connection to the local area, and the fact that she had previously worked with the museum. Her work fits well with other items in the collection by artists like Grayson
Delaine Le Bas, My mother said, that I never should, play with the Gypsies in the wood..., 2007, mixed media, ink, embroidery, appliqué on fabric, 78 × 50 cm
Brighton & Hove Museums
Delaine Le Bas
Perry and Alison Lapper – who use mixed media to convey their own individual histories in deeply personal pieces. It feels suitable to acquire a piece by Le Bas at a time when her work has been getting broader attention – giving visitors to Brighton Museum a sense that they will be part of a national conversation. Simultaneously acquiring a piece from an early part of her practice, which directly references her experiences growing up and the prejudices she endured, allows the museum to have conversations with visitors around how, even in places such as Brighton and Worthing that have liberal reputations, prejudice still occurs. Additionally, the curators are hoping to include Le Bas’s textile work in a new display, exploring artists who use their work as a means of protesting against injustices or as a form of protest.
Delaine Le Bas (b. 1965, Worthing, UK) lives and works in Worthing.
by the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Le
Delaine
Bas, My mother said, that I never should, play with the Gypsies in the wood..., 2007, mixed media, ink, embroidery, appliqué on fabric, 78 × 50 cm
Barbara Walker, MBE, RA, is an acclaimed British artist whose work is profoundly informed by the social, political and cultural realities of her life and those around her. Growing up in Birmingham, she has drawn deeply from her experiences to shape a practice concerned with issues of class, power, gender, race, representation and belonging. Her figurative paintings, such as Construct 2, tell contemporary stories rooted in historical circumstances, offering a human perspective on identity and the dynamics of modern Britain and beyond.
Barbara Walker’s Construct 2 (from her Show and Tell series) is an oil painting that draws viewers into a layered exploration of identity, youth subcultures and societal stereotypes. The work depicts a Black male figure, seen from behind, wearing a graphic T-shirt and a cap turned backwards. The T-shirt is adorned with a collage of words, symbols and cartoon-like imagery, including phrases like ‘BOOM!’ and ‘Lot 20’. These elements evoke associations with youth subcultures, such as hip-hop, graffiti and streetwear culture, which have historically served as spaces for self-expression and resistance to mainstream norms. The figure’s clothing becomes a powerful symbol of identity, reflecting how young people use fashion and style to communicate individuality, belonging and cultural alignment.
The artist’s commitment to telling nuanced stories of Black identity makes this work particularly significant, both for its artistic merit and for the conversations it can inspire. Walker’s decision to present the figure with his back to the viewer further amplifies the work’s narrative depth. This deliberate positioning invites us to consider the invisibility of individual identity within broader societal stereotypes. The figure’s anonymity speaks to how young Black men are often judged collectively rather than as individuals, reduced to assumptions based on clothing, posture or
Barbara Walker, Construct 2, 2009, oil on canvas, 182 × 152 cm
Rugby Art Gallery & Museum
Barbara Walker
cultural affiliation. By withholding the subject’s face, Walker forces the viewer to confront their own biases and re-envisage the nuances of portraiture.
In the context of the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum’s collection, Construct 2 offers an essential narrative about identity and representation, addressing gaps in the collection’s exploration of contemporary social issues. The painting complements the works of artists like Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson and Winston Branch, adding a younger, more urban perspective to their shared interrogation of race, culture and identity. This acquisition not only enhances the depth of the Rugby Collection but also affirms the gallery’s commitment to presenting diverse voices and perspectives, ensuring that our collection remains inclusive, reflective and relevant to our community. Walker’s Birmingham roots further amplify the relevance of her work to Rugby and the Midlands, fostering a strong regional connection that resonates with the gallery’s mission to represent and reflect its community.
Barbara Walker, MBE, RA (b. 1964, Birmingham, UK) lives and works in Birmingham.
Purchased with support of the V&A Purchase Grant, Art Fund, Contemporary Art Society and Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, 2024/25
Text by Katie Boyce, Senior Exhibitions and Programming Officer
Barbara Walker, Construct 2, 2009, oil on canvas, 182 × 152 cm
Artwork
All rights reserved,
Courtesy of Tiwani Contemporary and New Art Exchange.
Photo by Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, Rugby Borough Council. Portrait by Chris Keenan
Sheffield Museums Trust
Kedisha Coakley
Kedisha Coakley, On the Border of my Peaceful Home, 2023, Wallpaper, digital file, dimensions variable
and Breadfruit with Dhuka, Tulips and further Specimens on Velvet, 2023, bronze, wood and velvet, dimensions variable
Kedisha Coakley’s work explores the intertwined themes of Black identity, erased histories and colonisation, creating interconnected series that challenge dominant narratives. Through printmaking, photography and sculpture she reconsiders objects and cultural symbols, reframing ideas of history, race and culture. Coakley’s work confronts stereotypes, reflecting on the marginalised aesthetics of African-Caribbean women as well as interrogating historical, societal and cultural assumptions about the colonial past.
Kedisha Coakley, The Right to Opacity: Future Blue / Ether series, 2020, Fine Art archival print on Somerset paper, 58.9 × 98.6 cm
Since 2022, Coakley has been researching horticultural appropriation – the act of plants having been extracted from their native lands by colonial forces. These histories of violence have often gone unacknowledged, yet they have left a lasting impact both on the ecosystems from which the plants were taken and on the people who live there. A Still Life in Transit of Pineapple, Cotton and Breadfruit with Dhuka, Tulips and further Specimens on Velvet and the wallpaper On the Border of my Peaceful Home were originally commissioned for the exhibition Dutch Flower Paintings: Exploring Art in Bloom at the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, and also displayed at The Box, Plymouth, in 2023. Coakley’s installation explores the relationship between Empire and trade, highlighting the way in which fruit and flowers were used both as symbols of status and as tools of European colonisation. Sumptuously patterned rich blue wallpaper inspired by braided hair, and intricate bronze sculptures made through lost wax casting, contrast with the packing case plinths to recall histories that remain untold. The work imagines the violence of the horticultural pillage that took plants from one part of the world to another and considers what is left behind when these specimens are extracted from their native lands.
A selection of 23 pieces from the installation has been acquired for Sheffield’s collection alongside The Right to Opacity: Future. This photograph is part of a series that foregrounds Black female identity and the politics of hair, asserting the right of African-Caribbean women to be seen on their own terms and not for the benefit of the coloniser.
Kedisha Coakley, A Still Life in Transit of Pineapple, Cotton
Sheffield Museums Trust
Kedisha Coakley
It both augments and extends Sheffield’s representations of women in the collection, from the depictions of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Edith Sitwell to the powerful female portraits created by Claudette Johnson which also challenge the male colonial gaze.
Kedisha Coakley, On the Border of my Peaceful Home, 2023, Wallpaper, digital file, dimensions variable
This significant grouping adds to Sheffield’s growing contemporary collection, reflecting the complexities and nuances of identity in the 21st century. Exploring identity from a decolonial perspective, Coakley’s work challenges the dominant historical narrative, complementing the recent acquisition of work by Yuen Fong Ling. The new acquisitions will also sit alongside works by Lubna Chowdhary, Hew Locke, Ryan Mosley and Marlene Smith, which also investigate interconnected ideas of belonging, power, representation and cultural exchange. Coakley’s work is a powerful addition to Sheffield’s collection, creating a crucial opportunity for dialogue and change while encouraging a deeper critical engagement with the past.
Kedisha Coakley (b. 1982, London, UK) lives and works in Sheffield.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Text by Sian Brown, Head of Collections
Kedisha Coakley, A Still Life in Transit of Pineapple, Cotton and Breadfruit with Dhuka, Tulips and further Specimens on Velvet, 2023, bronze, wood and velvet, dimensions variable
Kedisha Coakley, The Right to Opacity: Future Blue / Ether series, 2020, Fine Art archival print on Somerset paper, 58.9 × 98.6 cm
Joy Gregory, Map Reading in Salamanca (from the series Women and Space, 1988–98), 1995, black and white silver gelatin print mounted to Dibond, 30.48 × 25.4 cm, edition 2 of 3 plus 2 AP
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens
Joy Gregory’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses photography, moving image, textile, digital film installation and sound. Gregory’s work explores urgent sociopolitical issues related to themes of gender, race and identity. Her work also explores the impact of geography, history and colonisation on individuals and communities.
Mike Silva, Jason (With Masks), 2023, oil on canvas, 129.5 × 180.3 cm
This is a photograph from Gregory’s series entitled Women and Space (1988–98) and shows the artist reading a map in a hotel room in Salamanca, Spain. The series Women and Space critiques societal pressures on women, in particular women’s right to claim space. The artist purposefully chose to photograph herself in what she has described as ‘borrowed’ spaces – for example public land or privately owned businesses such as hotels or boarding houses. In so doing, she claims the space as her own. Gregory is a leading figure in British photography, and this will be the first work by the artist to enter the South London Gallery collection. The piece has a resonance with several works already in the collection, for example Rene Matić’s Rene at Home (2022) which also explores themes of identity and notions of home. This acquisition deepens the South London Gallery’s representation of the medium of photography as well as expanding its strong representation of self-portraiture by artists.
Joy Gregory (b. 1959, Bicester, UK) lives and works in London.
South London Gallery Joy Gregory, Map Reading in Salamanca (from the series Women and Space, 1988–98), 1995, black and white silver gelatin print mounted to Dibond, 30.48 × 25.4 cm, edition 2 of 3 plus 2 AP
Mike Silva paints portraits, interiors and still lifes that are intimately connected to personal memory. Central to his practice is photography, inspired by its ability to capture a fixed moment in time. The artist has amassed a large collection of photographs taken in the 1990s and 2000s. By combining the photographs from his archive with his own emotions and memories, he retells these stories again through painting. Questions arise about how and what we remember, as well as what memories we choose to let go of.
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens has acquired Silva’s Jason (with Masks) because it will resonate with a wide audience. The painting features the artist’s former partner, Jason, listening to a Walkman in a living room they once shared. The masks on the wall, illuminated by the warm glow of fairy lights, belonged to Silva’s father and reflect his Sri Lankan heritage. The original photographic image dates back to London sometime in the 1990s.
Silva’s work resonates with that of other artists in the collection. Jacqueline Morreau’s painting Cascais III (1993) from the Fold Upon Fold series explores the domestic scene of an empty bed with twisted bedclothes. Chantal Joffe’s painting Bella in a Vest (2016) mixes the genres of childhood portrait and the casual family snapshot. Matt Stokes’s photographs Long After Tonight (2005–6) recreate a moment when a musical subculture (Northern Soul)
was influencing people’s lives and identities.
LS Lowry’s pencil drawing Interior Discord, 1922, shows a domestic scene that Lowry might have witnessed while working as a rent collector in Manchester.
The contemporary art collection is a small, and extremely important, part of the Fine Art collection at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens. It is being developed in relation to the very important early and mid-20thcentury holdings, including those by Sheila Fell and Prunella Clough. The museum aims to collect works produced over the last ten years, with a bias towards figurative work, focusing on nationally known artists. Recent collecting demonstrates the Museum’s continued commitment to acquiring diverse works and displaying images of traditionally under-represented sections of society.
Mike Silva (b. 1970, Sandviken, Sweden) lives and works in London.
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens Mike Silva
Mike Silva, Jason (With Masks), 2023, oil on canvas, 129.5 × 180.3 cm
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, Arts Council England / V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of Sunderland Museum, 2025
Text by Shauna Gregg, Exhibitions, Collections and Archives Officer
Ghislaine Leung, Hours, 2022, wall painting the size of artist’s studio wall divided into hours of the week, with studio hours available to the artist in black: Thursday 9am–4pm, Friday 9am–4pm, AP 1 in edition of 3 plus 2 AP
Ghislaine Leung has critically explored the conditions of art making, its presentation and circulation, particularly in the context of the institution. More recently her practice, while consolidating an exploration of art institutions, has developed to address her own vulnerability and agency with a body of work that negotiates her competing roles as mother and artist.
Indicative of Leung’s practice, Hours and Monitors exist as scores. Hours is a short written instruction, which sets the conditions for a work’s production and presentation –the instruction, or score, for a wall painting formed from 168 brick-like rectangles, arranged in a 24 by 7 grid. Central to the painting is a neat black square, a shaded group of the grid’s rectangles. It is the score for Hours that reveals the conceptual foundation of this neat, minimal composition. Painted to match the size of Leung’s home studio wall, the grid is an hour-by-hour breakdown of a week. The black square in the centre of the grid is the portion of the week Leung is able to devote to studio time. The other brick outlines represent the hours in the week when Leung is taking care of her child and family or is thinking or sleeping. This time and labour are often categorised as immaterial hours of nonproductivity. Monitors is the instruction to install a baby monitor in one room and broadcast to another. When installed, the display screen of the monitor is encountered in the gallery space.
The score does not specify the direction the video feed should take. In previous iterations it has granted the public a view into an otherwise private or inaccessible area of the gallery. The effect of the work is to merge motifs of care, exhibition transparency and the soft surveillance of institutions. The baby monitor is shown as a tool that enables a parent’s momentary separation from their child, but at the same time tethers them.
Ghislaine Leung, Monitors, 2022, baby monitor installed in one room and broadcast to another, edition 2 of 3 plus 2 AP
Leung is at the forefront of a new generation of British artists and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2023. Hours and Monitors, two works supported by the CAS Acquisition Fund for Tate, are important examples of a step change in Leung’s artistic development, marking her first entry into the national collection. As with the work of artists across the contemporary period, both works support Tate’s commitment to addressing the intergenerational urgency for discussions of women’s labour and parallel experiences as artist and mother.
Ghislaine Leung
Tate is also committed to expanding the representation of women artists in the collection, while simultaneously supporting a new generation of British artists and growing the range of media represented.
Ghislaine Leung, Hours, 2022, wall painting the size of artist’s studio wall divided into hours of the week, with studio hours available to the artist in black: Thursday 9am–4pm, Friday 9am–4pm, AP 1 in edition of 3 plus 2 AP
Ghislaine Leung (b. 1980, Stockholm, Sweden) lives and works in London.
Purchased with funds provided by the Contemporary Art Society, 2025
Ghislaine Leung, Monitors, 2022, baby monitor installed in one room and broadcast to another, edition 2 of 3 plus 2 AP
Jodie Carey, Guard, 2024, Jesmonite, earth and steel, dimensions variable
Through site-responsive sculptural installations, Jodie Carey explores the relationships between objectmaking and commemoration, looking at how the physical world can be a repository of material memory. She often employs traditional, historic and ritualistic methods of production using fragile or ephemeral materials, opposing the monumentality and permanence usually associated with sculpture.
Flowers and plants have remained an ongoing theme in Carey’s practice, from her early works of vanitas-style bouquets made from cut and coloured newspapers to the use of natural plant dyes to colour thread that is then woven into hanging textile works. Carey recognises the strong connection between flowers and conflict or war, either as a symbol of support such as the sunflower for Ukraine, or of remembrance as with poppies or carnations.
She builds on this interest in her newest works, the Guard series, immortalising the flowers and plants themselves. For this series Carey gathered plants and weeds from overlooked urban spaces in London. The full work comprises a group of 150 tall, delicate sculptures that stand proudly in the gallery space, inviting viewers to walk among them and experience them close up. Guard was produced using a technique called earth-casting. Binding together the plants with cloth and thread, Carey made a series of slender sculptures that were pressed directly into damp earth to form a rudimentary mould. The wrapped plants are removed and, in their place, Jesmonite is poured into the remaining imprint in the soil. Stood upright and attached to minimal steel bases, the tall and elegant sculptures are like a gentle army of sentinels. Unlike in previous work where Carey added touches of brighter colour, these have been left to their delicate creams, browns and yellows – the subtlety enabling the viewer to really concentrate on details of the imprinted textures and patterns left by the plants, flowers, roots and bindings.
Carey’s work explores the enduring connection between humans and nature, highlighting the resilience of plant life in an era of human-inflicted climate crisis, encouraging us to reflect on our relationship to nature. These ideas
Towner Eastbourne
Jodie Carey
are especially pertinent in the context of Towner’s collection with its focus on landscape. Historically reflecting the coast and downs of Sussex, but with more contemporary interests, Collection reflects the breadth of our experiences of landscape and the natural world, both rural and urban, addressing issues such as climate change and global conflict. With her interest in the fragility of both the natural world and human life, ritual, preservation and commemoration, Carey’s work fits firmly within Towner’s collection.
Jodie Carey, Guard, 2024, Jesmonite, earth and steel, dimensions variable
Jodie Carey (b. 1981 in Battle, UK) lives and works in Battle.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of the artist, 2024/25
Text by Sara Cooper, Head of Collections and Exhibitions
The Singh Twins, Indiennes: The Extended Triangle, 2018, textile, digital ink dyes on fabric, 225 × 112.5 cm
Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh are British sisters of Sikh heritage, who work collaboratively and display jointly under the name ‘The Singh Twins’. They draw on a variety of artistic traditions in their practice, including Indian miniature painting, 18th-century satirical prints, PreRaphaelite art and medieval illuminated manuscripts.
Indiennes: The Extended Triangle is highly representative of their output, which combines symbolism and imagery from all these sources to produce art that they describe as ‘Past Modern’. Created by The Singh Twins for their Slaves of Fashion series in 2018, it was first exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery and later toured to other UK venues. Indiennes: The Extended Triangle depicts a central, seated figure surrounded by imagery relating to the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies. ‘Indiennes’ were cotton fabrics made in India for export to the French market, where they were exchanged for enslaved Africans. The seated figure is draped in clothes made from these fabrics and is adorned with cowrie shells and beads, also used as goods in this triangular trade. The artists have incorporated details that draw attention to the role of European manufacture in this process: the central figure holds a gun labelled as ‘Made in Birmingham’, and a flagon under her chair has a ‘Sunlight Soap’ label, a Liverpool company that used forced labour on their palm oil plantations in West Africa.
Indiennes: The Extended Triangle resonates with the Tullie collection by giving contemporary relevance to Pre-Raphaelite Art. The central seated figure is modelled on Joanna Boyce Wells’s 1861 portrait of the Jamaican model Fanny Eaton. Eaton also modelled for The Mother of Sisera (1861), by Albert Moore, a treasured painting in the Tullie collection. The two works were both displayed in the Royal Academy landmark exhibition Entangled Pasts: 1768–Now, Art Colonialism and Change in 2024.
Tullie, Carlisle
The Singh Twins
A second, strong connection is with Carlisle’s complex history of industrial textiles. Tullie is based in Tullie House, the family home of the Dixons, a prominent cotton manufacturer in the city. Gingham woven in their Carlisle factory was exported to America for the clothing of enslaved people until the abolition of the slave trade in 1865.
The Singh Twins, Indiennes: The Extended Triangle, 2018, textile, digital ink dyes on fabric, 225 × 112.5 cm
This acquisition will be the first digitally printed textile to join the Tullie collection. It relates to the stories Tullie shares about artist-designed textiles and will sit alongside a nationally significant collection of modern textiles associated with Alastair Morton and Edinburgh Weavers.
Amrit and Rabindra Kaur Singh (b. 1966, London) live and work near Liverpool.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of Art Fund, Arts Council England / V&A Purchase Grant Fund and Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery Trust, 2024/25
Text by Melanie Gardner, Fine and Decorative Arts Curator
Charmaine Watkiss, Oracle of Our Forebears, 2023, pencil, colour pencil and ink on paper, 175 × 130 cm
Charmaine Watkiss engages with histories of the African-Caribbean diaspora, which is mapped onto female figures throughout her work. She focuses her research on the uses of plants and materials in acts of resistance and healing within the histories of these people. Watkiss works across many media, including drawing and installation, to address themes of ritual, tradition, ancestry, mythology and cosmology.
Oracle of Our Forebears was originally commissioned for Liverpool Biennial 2023, addressing the theme of uMoya: the sacred return of lost things, and was part of Watkiss’ large-scale installation titled Witness Oracle of Our Forebears was inspired by Watkiss’ research on female resistance leaders such as Nanny of the Maroons. Nanny in particular lead Jamaica’s Windward Maroons, who were formerly enslaved Africans and fought wars against the British forces. She was said to have supernatural powers, and she had extensive knowledge about herbs and healing. This work speaks of indigenous knowledge –the knowledge that made the transatlantic journey along with the enslaved, and the knowledge shared between the African people and the indigenous people of the Caribbean (the Taíno).
The figure is surrounded by symbols of resistance and healing knowledge. Items include the castor oil plant on the right of the image – the oil of this plant is used for healing and for beautifying the hair, but it can also be used to create the poison ricin, which was used in acts of resistance. On the left, behind the figure’s head, is the Momordica charantia plant, the bitter melon gourd. When you boil the leaves, the tea becomes a purgative to cleanse the system.
This work engages directly with material histories of slavery. Nanny of the Maroons was from the Akan
Usher Gallery, Lincoln
Charmaine Watkiss
people, from modern-day Ghana. This archetypal figure stands beside the Akan Drum, which was collected by Hans Sloane, whose collection formed the foundation of today’s British Museum. Drums were used as forms of communication and so the enslaved were banned from using them in the mid-1700s.
Charmaine Watkiss, Oracle of Our Forebears, 2023, pencil, colour pencil and ink on paper, 175 × 130 cm
This acquisition builds on key themes of diversity, post-colonial practice and inclusion in the collection of Lincoln Museum, sitting in dialogue with recent CAS acquisitions such as work by Thomas J Price that comments on who is represented in museum collections. Further, the acquisition of this work enables the museum to juxtapose and reconsider the legacy of the Lincolnshirebased, 18th-century botanical explorer Joseph Banks. Banks was the botanist on Cook’s first voyage to Brazil, Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia from 1768 to 1771, where he documented and collected thousands of native plant specimens, bringing many back to the UK for study. Watkiss’ work, exploring the shared medicinal and spiritual knowledge of indigenous and displaced, enslaved peoples, encourages an urgent, post-colonial reframing of Banks’s legacy and Western exploration.
Charmaine Watkiss (b. 1964, London, UK) lives and works in London.
by the Contemporary Art Society with the support of the Heslam
‘We have recently joined the Contemporary Art Society as a museum member, and are already seeing the value across our activities, with team members in curatorial and collection teams participating in CAS programmes and events, alongside developing contemporary collections under the Omega and Fine Art Acquisition schemes.’
Rosy
‘We have a long-standing close relationship with the CAS, who helped the Museum to build the foundations of its modern collection. We continue to value the relationship and appreciate the opportunity that the acquisition scheme provides.’
Gray, Head of Living Art, Sainsbury Centre
Catherine Daunt, Curator, Modern and Contemporary Prints, British Museum
Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums, Aberdeen
Art Gallery
Claire Partington
Claire Partington creates large-scale ceramic figures that venerate the past. She honours art history through her work, taking inspiration from masters such as Rubens, while simultaneously making direct reference to the contemporary through citing modern visual elements such as fashion and technology. Her works reimagine historical figures and fairy tales, interweaving the past with the present to create complex dialectical objects that often function to critique British politics and society.
Fascinated by folklore, she utilises mythologies from around the world to serve as the foundation for her pieces. In doing so she resurrects the residual culture of a bygone era, pulling it back into the 21st century by rendering celestial beings into relatable individuals; ones that walk their two-headed dog while clad in Reebok Classics or enjoy a leisurely bottle of cider underneath the tree of knowledge.
Women often feature as the subject of her work, serving to comment on gender, power, identity and image. These women are far from the damsels in distress that are often associated with classic fairy tales. Instead, they are overtly fierce and are in complete control of their own agency, subverting the viewer’s expectations.
Selkie references Celtic folklore. This mythological creature can shapeshift between seal and human forms by shedding or wearing their sealskin. In Partington’s work, the selkie is in human form, with the sealskin partially underneath. The artist gives this traditional tale a contemporary twist, showing the selkie in a bikini with Crocs and suntan lotion, browsing seal reels on her phone. Partington explains that she ‘wanted to make a figure that inhabits our contemporary world and the ancient folklore world, to reflect that belief that the Faerie world is present in our world’. She says, ‘My use of contemporary objects and clothing reflects the many contemporaneous tellings of folk tales. For instance, a faerie in a story from the 18th century may be wearing gold buckled shoes, because that was a fashion of the day, so my Selkie has her Crocs as her contemporary beach shoes.’
Claire Partington, Selkie, 2023, glazed earthenware and mixed media, 41 × 63 × 37 cm
Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums, Aberdeen Art
Gallery
Claire Partington
Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums is actively collecting artworks relating to identity, social change, feminism and well-being, and Selkie comments on all. A common selkie story is that the female selkie marries a male human, who then hides her sealskin to keep her captive, unable to return to the sea. Partington changes this narrative. She is interested in portraiture, symbolism and how sitters want to be seen, and the artist depicts a female selkie in full control, doing what she wants to do, exuding confidence. This acquisition pairs well with existing collection pieces, including the last Contemporary Art Society acquisition – Hanna Tuulikki’s film Seals’kin, based in Aberdeenshire, where Tuulikki explores with her body what it might mean to ‘become-with-seal’.
Claire Partington (b. 1973, Wigan, UK) lives and works in London.
Purchased with support from Aberdeen Art Gallery Trusts, the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund and the artist, 2024/25
by Shona Elliott, Lead
Claire Partington, Selkie, 2023, glazed earthenware and mixed media, 41 × 63 × 37 cm
Chris Day creates deeply personal artworks which explore what it means to be biracial in the UK. Through his art, Day aims to investigate and encourage conversations about the treatment of Black people in Britain and the USA, with much of his research focusing on the transatlantic traffic in enslaved African people. The glass, which he frequently blows into ‘cages’ made from copper pipe, gives each piece a unique character, while reflecting his career as a plumber prior to becoming an artist.
The Colour-Blind series was created for the exhibition Not Black or White at SoShiro Gallery, London (2023). In this series, the artist focuses upon his own story. He reflects upon the racism he endured from early childhood, the stigma he felt growing up without a father figure and the challenges he has had to open up about his identity.
The sculptures are multilayered in their meaning, and Day likens them to a strand of DNA, providing clues about his past. The bases are made from sapele timber, which can be found in the artist’s ancestral home of Nigeria, which is also referenced through his use of different glass colours. Although not visible, the bases are integral to the structure of the work and represent personal genealogy and strength. The coils of rope, along with the copper cages, are representative of the forced bondage endured by enslaved African people. The copper cages also allude to DNA helixes as well as elements of African body jewellery. The glass sculptures, which are straining against the metal frames, become lifelike but are enveloped by protective layers of colour.
Chris Day, Colour-Blind 5, 2023, hand-blown glass, microbore copper pipe, copper wire, rope and sapele wood base, 49 × 31 × 33 cm
The acquisition of three sculptures from the Colour-Blind series fits into Bristol Museum’s aim of developing its collections through a decolonising lens. Glass manufacture was a major industry in Bristol from the 1600s. Glass bottles were required to store products such as rum
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
Chris Day
Chris Day, Colour-Blind 3, 2023, hand-blown glass, microbore copper pipe, copper wire, rope and sapele wood base, 47 × 25 × 25 cm
produced by enslaved people forced to labour on British plantations, while luxury glass items were used to consume such products. The mixed materials challenge our perceptions of glass, encouraging the viewer to examine its boundaries as a fragile, yet highly adaptable material. The works furthermore reveal the potential of glass as a tool for storytelling. In exploring his past and identity, the artist hopes that these pieces will encourage others to tell their own story.
Chris Day, Colour-Blind 4, 2023, hand-blown glass, microbore copper pipe, copper wire, rope and sapele wood base, 46 × 31 × 31 cm
Chris Day, Colour-Blind 5, 2023, hand-blown glass, microbore copper pipe, copper wire, rope and sapele wood base, 49 × 31 × 33 cm
Chris Day (b. 1968, Derby, UK) lives and works in the West Midlands.
Purchased with support from Casper Farnham-Woodward, Giles Woodward and the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Bisila Noha, Primus II, 2024, wheel-thrown and coiled terracotta, 24.5 × 39.5 cm
Bisila Noha (she/her) is a Spanish-Equatoguinean artist who is interested in the unacknowledged contributions to craft and the history of art by Black and indigenous women, who are often unnamed. Bisila Noha’s recent series of terracotta vessels Primus explores ideas of dance, identity and migration. Primus II represents a new research-driven direction of her work responding to the story of Pearl Ellen Primus, a 20th-century American dancer and choreographer who researched African dance and sculpture, which served as inspiration for her movements. Primus was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and was also known as a ‘griot’, or an oral historian and holder of cultural knowledge in the West African tradition. Primus has only recently gained recognition for her important contributions to the history of dance and her study of African dance traditions, all conducted in an era marked by racial segregation and racist violence in the United States. Noha’s sculpture responds to Primus’ dancing, specifically the movement of fabric during her famous high jumps. Made using an intentional blending of techniques, the work is both thrown and hand-built. Noha also finds inspiration in the shapes of traditional containers and creates a play between positive and negative space, and between smooth and rough textures.
Poetry plays an important role in Noha’s practices. For her, writing is part of the process for making her sculptural work and is how she explores the intellectual and emotional sides of the creative process. Her concrete poems play with words in relation to the shapes of the vessels. For her Primus series, she has created a concertina-style book of poems. They explore themes of pain, movement, vulnerability and rebirth.
Primus II opens new dialogues among The Box’s significant ceramics collection, which holds historic British stoneware, porcelain and studio pottery, and represents Plymouth’s
The Box, Plymouth
Bisila Noha
place within the history of ceramics – being the place where William Cookworthy established Britain’s first porcelain factory in 1786. Noha’s practice speaks to decolonising narratives, transatlantic migration of people, ideas and craft. She challenges Western, patriarchal colonial hierarchies that value ceramics differently, based on material, method and maker. Historically, ceramics that are porcelain, wheel-thrown and made by men, often for the commercial market, were given higher value than hand-built, earthenware vessels, and those made by global majority women. Her work considers, in her words, ‘the forgotten women who have shaped the history of pottery. Whose stories and labour, because of the dominant patriarchal, Western, colonialist views on history, have sadly been ignored or belittled’.
Bisila Noha (b. 1988, Zaragoza, Spain) lives and works in London.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2024/25
Eleanor Lakelin spent much of her career teaching internationally before returning to her lifelong passion for wood in her late 30s. First retraining as a furniture designer at London’s Guildhall, she took a course at West Dean and subsequent masterclasses where she pushed the boundaries of the sculptural potential of her medium. She works with dead wood from trees felled, due to decay, in London and elsewhere in Britain. Working on a lathe and with other carving tools, Lakelin reveals the inner complexities of burr wood: the rounded irregular growths, knots and gnarled, chaotic forms that are the trees’ response to fungal infection or stress. Instead of slicing through the burr, a common carpentry technique used to produce decorative veneers, Lakelin carves around them using chisel, gouge and sandblaster, calling attention to their natural, three-dimensional state. These intricate carvings are incorporated within monumental vessels, vases, urns, columns, bottles and jars, with the final surfaces bleached or carbonised for dramatic effect.
Jar #4 was selected from Lakelin’s solo exhibition Intimations, held at Sarah Myerscough Gallery in summer 2024. The work comprises clusters of knotty outgrowths contrasted with gaping organic apertures into the vessel’s middle. Jar #4 was among the smallest pieces in Intimations and takes the form of a miniature moon jar with its rounded foot and slightly protruding rim. The bleached surface is reminiscent of burnished ceramic, but its weight – Jar #4 is exceptionally light when held –makes clear its true material base.
The Crafts Study Centre (CSC) has a small but significant collection of turned wooden objects. These include bowls and boxes made in the 1950s and 1970s by David Pye, work by Ray Key (including a piece in burr mulberry), dishes by Percy Beales and burr oak pieces by Jim Partridge and Nick Barberton.
Eleanor Lakelin, Jar #4, 2024, horse chestnut burr (bleached), 22 × 24 × 24 cm
Crafts Study Centre, Farnham
Eleanor Lakelin
The strategic use of the Omega Fund to acquire Lakelin’s Jar #4 signals the CSC’s intent to selectively add to its niche wood collection, drawing parallels between makers past and present who are drawn to revealing the inner life of British trees. Sketches, photography of test pieces, and samples that map the wood’s progress from source to lathe will accompany the acquisition.
Eleanor Lakelin (b. 1960, Llandrindod Wells, Wales) lives and works in London.
by the
Eleanor Lakelin, Jar #4, 2024, horse chestnut burr (bleached), 22 × 24 × 24 cm
Presented
Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2024/25
Text by Stephen Knott, Director Artwork courtesy of the artist and Sarah Myerscough Gallery. Photos by Michael Harvey. Portrait by Leroy Boateng
Gallery Oldham
Evelyn Albrow
Evelyn Albrow hand-builds her vessels, covering their large, abstract forms with detailed illustrations. Her work often centres around British folklore, myth and women. Her decoration has fantastical qualities drawn from medieval imagery, art history, museum artefacts and the natural world.
The vessel Daphne and the Flying Fish takes place in a lush garden of wild women and giantesses, referring to the Boschian imagery in The Garden of Earthly Delights, which has female bathers and riders with fishes or on fishes in the central panel. It features the nymph Daphne, who turned herself into a laurel tree to avoid being captured by the god Apollo. She can be seen gallivanting among animals and female mythical creatures. The scene depicted is set underneath seven glowing suns. Here Evelyn is referencing an optical illusion that occurred in Chengdu, China, in August 2024, as well as a Chinese myth in which cosmic archer Hou Yi shoots down nine of Earth’s ten suns to stop the planet from burning up.
Evelyn Albrow created the stoneware charger Dancing at the Edge of the World with the Golden Sickle while reflecting on winter and the idea of burning out the old year. Her design draws on Celtic winter rituals, particularly the tradition of cutting mistletoe from an oak tree with a golden sickle. She also found inspiration in the movements of local Sheffield sword dancers, whose dynamic poses influenced the creation of an alternative circle of dancers in the piece, paying homage to their tradition.
The political climate at the time also played a role in shaping the work. With Donald Trump having just taken office, the artist felt it was important to feature strong female figures, leading to the inclusion of powerful nymphs and Furies charging around a fire and shaking
Evelyn Albrow, Dancing at the Edge of the World with the Golden Sickle, 2024, stoneware charger, 55 cm (diameter)
Evelyn Albrow, Daphne and the Flying Fish, 2024, stoneware vase, 64 × 27 cm
Gallery Oldham
Evelyn Albrow
a blonde man in a suit at the centre of the scene. The charger’s title is drawn from Ursula K Le Guin’s 1989 collection of essays Dancing at the Edge of the World.
Gallery Oldham has a collection of around 100 pieces of studio ceramics. This spans a time period beginning with Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada up to the present day, with works by artists such as Halima Cassell, Lubna Chowdhary, Paul Scott and Emilie Taylor among the 21st-century acquisitions. Like many fine art collections which were founded in the Victorian period, Gallery Oldham holds a number of works relating to women and myth, notably Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses (1891) by John William Waterhouse. Myth-inspired ceramic works by Stephen Dixon and Claire Curneen have been added in the past 20 years, to complement the themes. This new work by Evelyn Albrow will sit comfortably at the intersection between the fine and decorative art collections.
Evelyn Albrow (b. 1986, Sheffield, UK) lives and works in Sheffield.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega
Evelyn Albrow, Dancing at the Edge of the World with the Golden Sickle, 2024, stoneware charger, 55 cm (diameter)
Evelyn Albrow, Daphne and the Flying Fish, 2024, stoneware vase, 64 × 27 cm
Fund, 2024/25
Text by Rebecca Hill, Collections & Exhibitions Coordinator
Bisila Noha, Primus IV, 2024, thrown, coiled and sculpted terracotta, 25 × 40 cm
Bisila Noha
Bisila Noha (she/her) is a Spanish-Equatoguinean ceramic artist, researcher and writer. Her ceramic practice combines multiple techniques, including coiling, carving, wheel-throwing, marbled slip decoration and the deliberate mixing of clays to explore themes of land, home and belonging.
Through her work, Noha challenges conventional narratives surrounding the role of women in society and critically examines Western perspectives on art and craft. As a storyteller, she is deeply committed to reclaiming the erased and marginalised contributions of women of colour in the history of art and craft and bringing the forgotten and overlooked into the present.
Primus IV is part of a series of ceramic works by Bisila Noha that explore dance, textiles and the movement of clay. The work is named after and pays homage to Pearl Eileen Primus (1919–94), the pioneering dancer, choreographer and anthropologist, who was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and relocated to New York with her parents in 1921. Inspired by Primus’ choreographed movements, the sculpted terracotta form Primus IV captures the rhythm and energy of dance. The clay appears to shift, echoing the fluidity of Primus’ clothing as she performed. Just as Primus defied gravity with her soaring jumps, Noha’s clay form seems to hover between motion and stillness, unfurling and swaying like fabric caught mid-dance.
Primus was instrumental in introducing African dance to American audiences, using movement to communicate cultural memory and artistic expression. Her choreography was deeply influenced by her research across Africa and the Caribbean.
MIMA, Middlesbrough
Bisila Noha
Bisila Noha explores identity, belonging, hidden histories and the deep connections between people and land. These themes are echoed in numerous works in the Middlesbrough Collection, including those by John Akomfrah, Bawa Ushafa and Lawson Oyekan.
Bisila Noha, Primus IV, 2024, thrown, coiled and sculpted terracotta, 25 × 40 cm
MIMA’s team and collaborators will engage with this new work to spark storytelling and activate enquiry into local, national and international topics. The work will also drive discussions and workshops exploring materials, craft processes and the relationship between function and form.
As part of Teesside University, MIMA plays a vital role in research and education, utilising the Middlesbrough Collection as a valuable resource for research and education. As such, Noha’s work will remain readily accessible for in-depth study and display.
Bisila Noha (b. 1988, Zaragoza, Spain) lives and works in London.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund with support from MIMA, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, 2024/25
by Helen Welford, Exhibitions and Collection Curator
Ash & Plumb are an artistic duo and couple who predominantly work in the creation of wooden vessels. Former creatives within the fashion industry, they turned to a creative woodworking practice in 2020. Their work is created in response to the Sussex landscape, using responsibly sourced green oak from the surrounding area. This is then crafted into their own distinctive, amphoralike forms in their studio in the Sussex South Downs. The pieces are turned and carved by Barnaby Ash and then hand sewn with wax thread by Dru Plumb, mimicking elements of kintsugi, which makes a feature of visible or creative repairs, to enhance knots or splits in the wood. The oak itself is burnt and then ebonised to create a highly polished surface that looks closer to ceramics than woodworking.
Amphora V was specifically commissioned for the museum. It built on work the artists developed during previous exhibitions at the Watts Contemporary Gallery, in Compton, Surrey, and at the Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, but also their display at the Collect open showcase at Somerset House in 2024. During the process the museum curator sent reference images of Roman pots from Brighton & Hove Museums’ collection, which were used as a source of inspiration when creating the piece. Brighton & Hove Museums were especially keen to have a piece that reflected the large scale that Ash & Plumb’s work has evolved into, as well as their continued use of oak felled from along Britain’s south coast.
Beyond this, Ash & Plumb’s work fits into Hove Museum’s craft collection for several reasons. Firstly, the museum is particularly keen to reflect the diversity of Brighton and Hove in its craft galleries, which acquiring work by an LGBT+ couple has allowed them to do. Secondly, the curatorial team were drawn to work that referenced and
2024, fire and limewash patinated English oak with waxed cotton stitchwork
Brighton & Hove Museums
Ash & Plumb
reflected the heritage of Sussex – the county has a long pottery tradition, and Brighton Museum itself holds a significant collection of Roman pots and amphora. The artists’ work reflects these traditions, while developing them in new directions. Thirdly, Amphora V references Dru’s Southeast Asian heritage, by using a technique built on the principle of kintsugi, which chimes well with the museum collection and its international and specifically South Asian influences. It reveals to Brighton’s audiences the way in which a piece can represent both local and international interests, as well as referencing the past and the present in new and exciting ways.
Barnaby Ash and Andrew (Dru) Plumb (b. 1988, Cambridge, UK; b. 1987, Dunsborough, Australia) live in Brighton and work in Newhaven.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2024/25
Ash & Plumb, Amphora V, 2024, fire and limewash patinated English oak with waxed cotton stitchwork mending, 62 × 40 cm (diameter)
Text by Laurie Bassam, Curator, Fine and Decorative Art
Castro Smith is an award-winning British jeweller and traditional hand engraver, who creates intricately engraved pieces incorporating designs inspired by mythology, anatomy and the natural world which demonstrate his skill in European and Japanese engraving techniques.
Smith, who is of Filipino heritage, originally trained as a painter and printmaker and secured a Goldsmiths’ Company apprenticeship at R H Wilkins in Hatton Garden where he combined illustration with engraving. In 2017, Smith was awarded the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust scholarship and travelled to Japan to study under master metalworkers. Smith then spent three years based at Sarabande, the late Lee Alexander McQueen’s foundation and his work is represented in the Crafts Council Collection and the V&A.
Smith was commissioned to make this ring in response to Tullie’s designated Natural Science collection. Local conservation stories and the beauty of the natural world were the focus for the commission. Specific inspiration came from the active conservation project to restore the Hen Harrier, one of England’s most endangered breeding birds of prey found in North East Cumbria. Smith has focused on the Hen Harrier, with it flying over the ring bringing mice to the nest. Smith is hoping he has matched the variation in the male and female feathers, which should become more apparent with the ceramic and rhodium colouring he uses. There are also flowers around the nest.
The ring Birds of Prey resonates strongly with the Natural Science and the Decorative Art collections at Tullie. The acquisition is part of the museum’s commitment to exploring interdisciplinary narratives and drawing connections between the diverse aspects of the collection, which currently numbers over one million objects.
Castro Smith, Birds of Prey, 2025, 9k yellow gold, ceramic and rhodium plating, diamonds, 23 × 15 mm ring face
Tullie, Carlisle
Castro Smith
Tullie’s Designated Natural Science collection is nationally important and covers the breadth of Cumbria, which has one of the most biologically diverse range of habitats in England. The collection dates from the 1700s to the present day and is an irreplaceable resource for understanding the biodiversity and landscape of the region. The collection contains many specimens which have underpinned significant scientific research and continues to inspire and inform the scientific community and the public.
This acquisition also brings contemporary relevance to Tullie’s collection of Arts and Crafts metalwork. This includes notable pieces created locally by the renowned Keswick School of Industrial Art, and objects acquired by local owners such as the Charles Robert Ashbee jewellery collected by Maud Scott-Nicholson, a member of a prominent Carlisle family.
Castro Smith (b. 1988 Newcastle-upon-Thyne, UK) lives and works in London.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Omega Fund, 2024/25
Castro Smith, Birds of Prey, 2025, 9k yellow gold, ceramic and rhodium plating, diamonds, 23 × 15 mm ring face
As a sculptor and painter, Anousha Payne’s preferred materials are ceramic and mixed media. She uses these to create experimental works that draw on a variety of sources such as personal experiences, essays, fiction and folklore, with ideas often springing from the stories she writes.
York Art Gallery commissioned Payne to create a new piece of work especially for York. She spent time exploring the gallery’s collections, buildings and nearby Museum Gardens in developing her ideas, deciding to create a physical representation of an imaginary creature from a short story. Written during the Covid pandemic, it reflected on the importance of interpersonal relationships and access to nature. Payne’s story was a response to the loneliness, companionship and grief experienced by many during periods of lockdown.
Payne’s multi-legged, furry creature lives in York and collects physical mementos in its coat, creating memories. She took inspiration from the ceramics collections, particularly the bricolage work of Gillian Lowndes, the imaginary figurative landscapes by Ian Godfrey and the experimental use of materials by Ewen Henderson –all of whom pushed the boundaries of ceramic art. This exploration helped the artist extend her own artistic practice, furthering her experimentation with new ways of mixing different clays. She also used elements gathered from York’s Museum Gardens, her local area and other places around the UK, to produce charms for her creature to carry on its coat. These suspended charms act like souvenirs collected by the many visitors coming to York for a fleeting stay or to settle here permanently. The production of the piece from a variety of different clay bodies, including clay excavated in London, references the multicultural nature of British society.
York Art Gallery identified Payne as an artist to work because her interests align closely with the museum’s, particularly regarding the role of women as producers of art and as subjects in art and fiction. Outlining the research interests that inform her work, Payne explains: ‘The stories I feel the most connected to depict women
Anousha Payne, Of Mud of Mind (An Elusive Creature), 2024, black clay, bronze, salvage yarn, bramble, glazed stoneware, white clay, 96 × 179 × 10 cm
York Art Gallery
Anousha Payne
as characters with transformative or magical powers. Their powers or generosity are often taken advantage of, so I reframe them in an empowered light – returning their autonomy to them.’
This commission offered the museum the opportunity to continue to support female artists, nurturing positive dialogue between artist, collections and audiences. Of Mud of Mind animates York Art Gallery’s collections and engages visitors with storytelling and the creative use of materials and craft skills.
Anousha Payne (b. 1991, London, UK) lives and works in London.
Anousha Payne, Of Mud of Mind (An Elusive Creature), 2024, black clay, bronze, salvage yarn, bramble, glazed stoneware, white clay, 96 × 179 × 10 cm
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Griffin Fund
‘It’s always such a pleasure to work with someone who has decided to do something as generous as donate a work of art to a museum. There’s a vision of the new life that the work will have as it joins a collection, and a deep satisfaction in imagining the pleasure it will bring to a whole new audience.’
Caroline Douglas, Director of the CAS
‘The CAS has been a major patron of the Wakefield Art Gallery Collection for 90 years helping the museum to fulfil its aim to collect and display outstanding examples of contemporary art. Since 1935, the CAS has supported over 100 gifts to the collection by renowned artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Eduardo Paolozzi, Kim Lim, Anthea Hamilton, Ro Robertson, Phyllida Barlow, Mona Hatoum, and most recently in 2025, Haegue Yang and Nour Jaouda. The Hepworth Wakefield has no acquisitions fund and therefore relies on fundraising and philanthropic support to enhance its collection.’
Laura Smith, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, The Hepworth Wakefield (formerly the Wakefield Art Gallery)
The Box, Plymouth
Anne Hardy
Anne Hardy, Energy Locator, 2023–24, found materials, stones, welded steel, light, custom-designed computer system for light source that responds to Marfa meteorological data, 99 × 81 cm (diameter)
Anne Hardy works with everyday materials, including industrial salvage, and is known for her large-scale installations that often employ sources of light. In 2022 she spent two months as a resident at The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, which was set up by artist Donald Judd in the 1970s. In the legacy of Judd and the forerunners of Minimalism, Hardy created Earth Spells using soil, stones and salvaged materials found on or near the Marfa site. Upon returning to London, she created in 2023 a new body of work inspired by her Texas residency, entitled Survival Spell
In Energy Locator, made for Survival Spell, two outstretched hands, formed of stones, gesture towards a flickering lightbulb. Each element of the work is carefully placed atop a worn wooden wheel forming a table. There is the suggestion of a human presence but also an eerie absence. The pattern of fluctuating light correlates with recorded meteorological data from Marfa, Texas, in particular the changing wind speed, for which Hardy has created a custom computer programme. The lightbulb in Energy Locator and its hidden circuitry hint at many interconnected energy systems, whether in the weather, light, electrical power grids or the human body, as suggested by the stones formed into the shape of two hands resting in front of the light.
Plymouth, a port city defined by its relationship to the sea, may at first seem in many ways opposite to the dry desert of Texas. But both the Southwest of the US and the Southwest of England have a history of rural landscapes known for ranching and mining. Before Judd moved from New York to work in the bright Texas sun, generations of artists had over the years relocated to Britain’s southwest coast to experience the luminous quality of marine light.
Both Marfa, Texas, and Plymouth, Cornwall became hosts
The Box, Plymouth
Anne Hardy
Anne Hardy, Energy Locator, 2023–24, found materials, stones, welded steel, light, custom-designed computer system for light source that responds to Marfa meteorological data, 99 × 81 cm (diameter)
for 20th-century modernist movements and are today hubs for contemporary art.
Moreover, the study of weather and its extremes has shaped both places. Since the 1800s, Plymouth has been home to maritime research institutions monitoring the sea and logging changing environmental patterns, including evidencing the human impact on marine ecology. Devon itself is home to the Met Office in Exeter. For Hardy, weather is a metaphor for emotion, and she has long been interested in weather patterns and how they are studied, logged and documented. With increasing anxieties about climate change and the increase in extreme weather patterns due to the effects of climate change, Hardy’s work makes for a timely acquisition and sits alongside The Box’s broader collection that considers our relationship to the land, including historic and modern landscapes of the local region.
Anne Hardy (b. 1970, London, UK) lives and works in London.
Gift of Jill Hackel and Andrzej Zarzycki through the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Three significant works by Nick Goss, Lothar Götz and Phoebe Unwin have been presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the bequest of Christopher Jermyn to Pallant House Gallery, Chichester.
Nick Goss’s work takes observations of everyday life and photographic or archival material as the starting point, to provide a tangible, recognisable reality. To this factual underpinning, the Anglo-Dutch artist injects a feeling of otherness or uncertainty through his particular handling of paint. The resulting paintings operate on the cusp of narration and abstraction, realism and surrealism, in which the familiar meets the uncanny.
Set in the liminal space of the rehearsal room, Honky Tonk was inspired by a passage from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Transparent Things (1972) in which Nabokov talks about ‘the dream life of debris’; how inanimate objects have their own character and stories by which a viewer can be subsumed. Goss says: ‘Honky Tonk was one of the first paintings I made about various rehearsal spaces in and around London. In 2012 I played in the band My Sad Captains and we spent a lot of time in these odd in-between spaces often situated on the edges of the city. Rooms that have been hastily dressed, almost in drag, a cursory Led Zeppelin poster, a pot plant that’s seen better days. There is embedded history of creativity in these spaces.’ The painting is also inspired by the sight of a battered piano in the corner of a hotel bar when Goss was staying in the coal mining town of Barentsburg, Norway, in the Arctic Circle While the motifs of piano, houseplant and chair are instantly recognisable, the sepia tones and loose handling of paint lend a melancholy atmosphere to a scene that seems from another era.
Lothar Götz, Untitled, 2014, pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 32.3 × 24 cm
This idea of psychology of space was at the heart of Morley’s Mirror, the artist’s first institutional solo show, at Pallant House Gallery in 2019, in which he reimagined London’s cityscape and its interior spaces to explore themes of displacement and natural disaster. Prior to the acquisition of Honky Tonk, Goss was only represented in the gallery’s collection through a miniature painting,
Nick Goss, Honky Tonk, 2012, oil on linen, 190 × 173 cm
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Nick Goss, Lothar Götz and Phoebe Unwin
Arcadia, created for the ‘2021 Model Art Gallery’, for which artists were invited to produce miniature works at the height of the Covid 19 pandemic. By contrast, Honky Tonk operates in the large format that is typical of Goss’s practice. While it expands the gallery’s collection of work around themes of music and performance – notably by Ceri Richards, Peter Blake and Sonia Boyce – it complements the gallery’s collection of paintings by artists that have inspired and continue to inspire Goss, such as Michael Andrews and Paul Nash, whose works explore a sense of place while also revelling in the materiality of painting.
Nick Goss (b. 1981, Bristol, UK) lives and works in London.
Lothar Götz’s interest lies in space, colour and form, to explore how colour interferes with our perception of space. His practice spans from drawing and painting to large-scale installation. He delights in responding to architecture and the specificity of place, whether foyers, offices or reading rooms in spaces as varied as art galleries and underground stations, government buildings and hospitals.
Götz is best known for his vibrantly painted, site-specific murals, including Composition for a Staircase (2016), which was commissioned to mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of Pallant House Gallery’s 2006 extension. Playing with scale, Götz also created a miniature mural for the facade of the ‘2021 Model Art Gallery’, for which artists were commissioned to produce work during the Covid pandemic. Although his monumental works are marked by large geometrical blocks of industrial paint, drawing lies at the centre of his practice: the distinctive geometry of his mural compositions first emerges as observations of the space around him, translated on paper as he sketches networks of lines between architectural points in space.
Untitled is from a series of line drawings. Götz says: ‘Different to the more formal compositions of mine, the line drawings have no hard-edged shapes but evolve slowly through the process of drawing many thin lines
Lothar Götz, Untitled, 2014, pencil and coloured pencil on paper, 32.3 × 24 cm
Nick Goss, Honky Tonk, 2012, oil on linen, 190 × 173 cm
crossing each other. It is a constant layering and crossing of lines through which the final result and shape appears. With each layer the drawing becomes more dense and starts to form a cloud-like shape. Due to this process the colours appear fairly muted and it all feels like weaving an image.’ Marked by a precise syntax of luminous lines and a poetic sense of colour, Untitled speaks to ideas around abstraction and colour within Pallant House Gallery’s collection, notably in the work of Ben Nicholson, Paule Vézelay and the British Constructivists, but also in the work of contemporary artists such as Rachael Clewlow.
Lothar Götz (b. 1963, Günzburg, Germany) lives and works between London and Berlin.
Phoebe Unwin’s practice is rooted in personal experience and visual perception. Her paintings evoke the transience of memory, transferring and transforming everyday moments and objects onto canvas. As the source material for her work, she collects snapshots of ideas, scraps of the material world, images, textures, mementos and recollections that are compiled in sketchbooks. From the memory, the fragment and the familiar, she then works through layers of paint, in turn exploring transparency, mark-making and opacity, shrouding the recognisable in mystery. Rather than depictions of the observed world, she describes her paintings as ‘the abstract triggering the figurative’ which in turn invites us to take pleasure in the materiality, quality and surface of the paint itself.
Phoebe Unwin, Milk, 1971, acrylic on linen, 60 × 75.5 cm
Milk makes a virtue of repetition, with the hazy feature of glasses, mostly empty, some partly filled with milk, their rhythm disrupted by mark-making and the layering of paint, to create a pattern on the margin of abstraction and figuration. In Unwin’s words, ‘Milk originated very much from the process of painting: thinking about and responding to what different marks, colours and scale have the potential to reference. I find painting is a way to explore and riff on the ideas a subject presents, honing both deeply felt individual and collective connections. The repeated glass of milk represented is a sort of diagrammatic slice showing the volume of liquid rising
and falling. It is something cyclical: a routine calendar of consecutive days, to be consumed and replenished.’ Unwin was particularly attracted by the idea of milk as a source of nourishment and comfort, a pillar of life but also culture. She painted the glasses in their true scale to create a sense of recognition, an almost physical understanding of the subject that helps give it presence and substance. Unwin played with ‘the sensation of different speeds of paint, in particular the mechanised application of spray paint (with the potential to obliterate a layer in seconds) in contrast to the traditional, heavy opacity of oil paint, applied by hand with a brush.’ This is the first work by this artist to be acquired by Pallant House Gallery, where it joins an important collection of modern and contemporary still lifes, notably paintings by Christopher Wood, Ivon Hitchens, Mary Fedden and Clare Woods.
Phoebe Unwin (b. 1979, Cambridge, UK) lives and works in London.
Bequest of Christopher Jermyn, presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Karla Black, Includes What’s Wanted, 2016, sugar paper, oil paint, cushion stuffing and ribbon, 40.5 × 58.5 × 5 cm
The Sainsbury Centre has acquired Helaine Blumenfeld’s Shadow Figures, an incredible addition to a collection, which contains important works by 20th-century sculptors such as Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. The Sainsbury Centre is a world-class art museum and one of the first museums in the world to display art from all around the globe and from all periods equally and collectively. Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury created one of the most sought-after yet nonconformist art collections, housed in Sir Norman Foster’s revolutionary first-ever public building. It’s in this context that Blumenfeld’s work is now on permanent display in the Sainsbury Centre’s iconic Living Area, a unique space which creates an interactive relationship between people, art and the landscape.
in this medium, including Henry Moore, with whom Blumenfeld exhibited in 1985 at Alex Rosenberg Gallery in New York.
Blumenfeld’s work falls magically in the liminal space between figure and abstraction. Citing Henry Moore as an artist with whom she has affinities (as well as differences), Blumenfeld describes Moore’s sculpture as projecting ‘presences more than bodies’. (Alex Rosenberg, Alan Caine and Tom Flynn, Helaine Blumenfeld –Henry Moore: A Dialogue 1985–2015, Bowman Sculpture, p. 12.)
Karla Black, Could, 2013, sugar paper, glue, ink, paint and string, 60 × 62 × 45 cm
The Shadow Figures series is one of Blumenfeld’s most significant creations, inspired by the Platonic idea that we never really see a person: we only see the shadow that they cast, which is ever-changing. There is a remarkable translucency and lightness to the work, which is testimony to the quality of both material and method. Blumenfeld has explored working in marble since the mid1970s, following a visit to Pietrasanta in Italy and its surrounding marble quarries. This visit had a profound impact on Blumenfeld’s practice, and it was here she joined the master carver Sem Ghelardini at Studio Sem, where she developed and extended her skills as a carver. It was during this period that Blumenfeld met others working
This notion of presence is fundamental to Blumenfeld’s work, albeit more concerned with sensuality and movement than Moore’s. Blumenfeld takes this further, hinting that our experience of sculpture is akin to our experience of other human beings: ‘I believe we have a soul and that it’s not a religious feature, not tangible and not describable, but it’s something there, and it’s there as a translucency, a transparency, as an illumination. It’s what lights us up.’ (Anna McNay, ‘Helaine Blumenfeld: “Beauty has no real meaning anymore,”’ Studio International, 7 November 2016) These principles find expression in Blumenfeld’s choice of marble, with its luminosity an essential part of the work.
Helaine Blumenfeld (b. 1942, New York, USA) lives and works between Cambridge, UK, and Pietrasanta, Italy.
Helaine Blumenfeld, Shadow Figures: A Man and a Woman, 1988, white statuario marble, 130 × 95 × 37 cm
Donated by Eric and Jean Cass through the Contemporary Art Society, 2024/25
Six works by renowned artist Karla Black have been gifted to Pier Arts Centre, Leeds Art Gallery and Touchstones Rochdale.
Aspects of fragility, process, and sculpture as a tool to explore varying viewpoints embody the work of Karla Black. Her sculptures push the boundaries of materials and of the language of sculpture, in ways that play with notions of minimalist composition, qualities of paint and colour, and ideas of bodiliness. Combining sugar paper in pastel, candy colours, with familiar cosmetic products – bright fuchsia blusher, deep red lipstick, creamy beige foundation – Black creates a dynamic, ephemeral world within gallery walls but also beyond the surface of the work itself. Her sculptures vary in scale, from small and compact to full immersive rooms composed of multiple parts, and the viewer is invited into playful conversations between delicate layers of papers and powders.
The works gifted by the artist to the Pier Arts Centre Collection give deeper insights into conversations surrounding spatial structures and internal dynamics of form. Could exists as a framework of embodied action – each crease of paper part of an unfolding dance that renders its being. It sits lightly on the floor, but with a weight that contradicts its delicacy. There is opposition in its materiality, whereby crumpled paper becomes a thing of elegance and something to treasure. This work is characterful and can be walked around, viewed from above or from crouched down right beside it. The works The Target and Includes What’s Wanted are both suspended by ribbon and appear to be floating.
Subtle in colour palette, they have a freshness – retaining the energy of their creation and the material processes involved. Foundation and body paint sit on the surface of The Target reminiscent of icing on a cake. And Include What’s Wanted has a billowiness – like a pillow – that sparks the connection between materiality and human experience.
There are important connections between Karla Black and other Pier Arts Centre Collection artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Sara Barker and Eva Rothschild. Black’s sculptures add a new layer and dimension to the Collection and underscore the significance of female artists within minimalism, materiality and art as a living activity.
Text by Kari Adams, Associate Curator (Collection & Exhibitions), Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
Karla Black’s Used To encapsulates the artist’s signature quizzical approach to materiality – both in a literal sense and through the underlying ideas that shape her creative process. The gift marks the first representation of Karla Black in the Leeds Museum and Art Gallery collection, joining an esteemed assemblage of modern and contemporary sculpture. With its fascinating ambiguity – occupying the interstices between painting and sculpture – it aligns with the museum’s curatorial strategy of presenting displays that interweave the two mediums. Its ability to function as both a painting with sculptural depth and a relief with painterly qualities makes it a compelling and versatile addition to future exhibitions.
While Black is widely known for her largescale, immersive installations, Used To distils her artistic language into a singular, intimate expression of her practice. The piece combines traditional art-making materials – paper, thread and chalk – with unexpected elements such as cosmetics,
Pier Arts Centre, Stromness
Karla Black
Helaine Blumenfeld, Shadow Figures: A Man and a Woman, 1988, white statuario marble, 130 × 95 × 37 cm
Karla Black, Includes What’s Wanted, 2016, sugar paper, oil paint, cushion stuffing and ribbon, 40.5 × 58.5 × 5 cm
Karla Black, Could, 2013, sugar paper, glue, ink, paint and string, 60 × 62 × 45 cm
Leeds Art Gallery
Karla Black
Karla Black, Used To, 2016, sugar paper, chalk, body paint, face highlighter, nail varnish, lipstick, concealer, thread, 39 × 56 cm
Touchstones Rochdale
Karla Black
including concealer, lipstick and nail varnish, which is typical of Black’s work and subtly interrupts the mintgreen surface.
Fragility is inherent to the work. The support of sugar paper – typically associated with children’s crafting rather than fine art – lends a delicate vulnerability. The physically small work is suspended by a thread at each side. The loosely rectangular shape features rounded and softened corners and undulating sides, swaying slightly in response to air currents as visitors pass by.
Black has often cited her interest in psychology, particularly the work of Melanie Klein (1882–1960), whose method of analysing young children through their physical interactions rather than language resonates with the artist’s haptic approach. In Used To, this psychological underpinning is subtly embedded in the act of making, inviting a deeply sensory engagement with the work.
Text by Yvonne Hardman, Head of Collections & Programmes, Leeds Art Gallery
Disregarding the hierarchy of traditional art mediums, the application of everyday materials that Karla Black uses challenges conventional methods and meanings of making art.
Describing her work as existing in a space of ‘almost painting, almost installation, almost performance’, Black carefully considers the practical qualities that the materials offer, and this, combined with the relationship between form, composition and colour, enables a direct link with the physical world around us. This allows more connection to the viewer’s own experience and perception of what art is, what it can be and what it means.
Deserves to Mean uses a blend of florist foam and glue to create a large sphere of earth interspersed with small indentations, some of which contain small pieces of broken balsa wood coloured with eyeshadow. A sprinkling of earth falls onto the gallery floor around the work, generating a fine ring of dust. As with Invite Often, made with painted cotton wool pieces, adhered together and displayed away from the wall with two strands of delicate white ribbon, both works suggest a sense of fragility and impermanence.
Karla Black, Deserves to Mean, 2013, florist foam, earth, balsa wood, wood glue, eyeshadow, 140 cm (diameter)
Leeds Art Gallery
Karla Black
Deserves to Mean and Invite Often are the first works by Karla Black to enter the Touchstones Rochdale collection and connect with other sculptural pieces by artists including Susan Collis, Claire Barclay, Sara Barker, Caroline Achaintre, Jasleen Kaur and the most recent acquisition by Katrina Palmer.
Building on Touchstones Rochdale’s commitment to readdress the gender imbalance within the collection, the acquisition champions women artists and strengthens our longstanding reputation for engaging with art in a social and political context. This legacy spans from our support of marginalised artists during the 1980s and 1990s to programmes focused on meaningful co-creation and collaboration that reflect Rochdale’s history with the Cooperative movement and allow our past to inform our future.
Karla Black (b. 1972, Alexandria, Scotland) lives and works in Glasgow.
Text by Sarah Hodgkinson, Senior Curator, Exhibitions and Collections, Touchstones Rochdale
Gift of the artist and Galerie Capitain, Cologne, presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2025
Also acquired for Pier Arts Centre, Stromness:
The Target, 2004, cardboard, newspaper, glue, paint, polythene, water, steroid ointment, clothes, 153 × 246 × 8 cm
Also acquired for Touchstones Rochdale: Invite Often, 2016, cotton wool, paint, ribbon, 50 × 876 × 1 cm
Karla Black, Used To, 2016, sugar paper, chalk, body paint, face highlighter, nail varnish, lipstick, concealer, thread, 39 × 56 cm
Touchstones Rochdale Karla Black
Karla Black, Deserves to Mean, 2013, florist foam, earth, balsa wood, wood glue, eyeshadow, 140 cm (diameter)
CPD Programme
Our Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Programme serves as the Subject Specialist Network for curators of contemporary art –a collaborative community of professionals who share expertise, resources and best practices to support professional growth and enhance the care and interpretation of contemporary collections. By bringing together curators from our partner museums, the CPD Programme fosters new ideas, builds connections and shares knowledge to strengthen and develop public collections of contemporary art.
‘Part of the value comes in being part of the broader community of museum members across the UK and the international connections that this offers.’
Andrew Parkinson, Curator, The Pier Arts Centre
‘First and foremost, membership of the CAS enables the South London Gallery to acquire works for its contemporary collection, but it is also valuable to be part of a wider network of museums and galleries. The professional development opportunities are much appreciated, as are the annual conference and regular newsletters.’
‘CAS membership provides us with the opportunity to continue to grow our network and make vital connections with artists, curators and specialists which in turns helps inform not only our acquisitions, but our programming interpretation, and approach. The CPD offered by CAS is also second to none, and we would really struggle to have the vital conversations that are facilitated by the conference, and the discussions generated on research visits, if these spaces were not created by CAS.’
Isabelle Hancock, Deputy Director, South London Gallery
Charlotte Keenan, Head of Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool
Study Day: Portals, Art and Spirituality, The Swedenborg House, London 9 May 2024
We explored the theme of spiritualism within artistic, curatorial and museological research, highlighting how related approaches – such as esotericism, divination, magic, witchcraft and the occult – have gained prominence in contemporary art discourse. Reflecting this growing interest, the study day brought together academic, curatorial and artistic voices investigating the creative and political potential of spiritualism within the realm of the art world. Speakers included Professor Lisa Blackman, authors Stephen Ellcock, Jennifer Higgie and Michael Bracewell, as well as the artistic duo Sammy Lee and Sarah Shin, all of whom shared their research on art and spirituality, shedding light on the possibilities this intersection may offer.
Trip to Barcelona, Manifesta 15 6–7 September 2024
Our annual international trip took us to Spain for the professional preview days of Manifesta 15, the European nomadic biennial. A group of 30 CAS museum members came together to explore exhibitions, artworks, community projects and site-specific installations presented across 12 cities in the Barcelona metropolitan region. The biennial focused on themes such as environmental challenges, community well-being and sustainable urban futures. Works by artists previously supported by CAS –such as Mike Nelson, Carlos Bunga and Asad Raza –were exhibited in remarkable locations, including a medieval convent, a former prison and the striking Three Chimneys building.
Images courtesy of the Contemporary Art Society and the William Blake archive (Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils, c. 1826, William Blake)
Images courtesy of the Contemporary Art Society
Frieze Art Fair & Valeria Napoleone Art Collection
11 October 2024
For Frieze London, we welcomed our museum members to join us for guided tours of the fair and a special afternoon at the Kensington home of philanthropist and CAS trustee Valeria Napoleone, a renowned collector of work by women artists. The event included a panel discussion with curators from institutions that have acquired works through the Valeria Napoleone XX Contemporary Art Society scheme, highlighting the significance of these acquisitions for their collections and the wider public. Members also had the opportunity to view pieces from Valeria’s private collection and hear firsthand about her ongoing commitment to gender equality and the representation of women in art.
Ceramics Day 7 November 2024
The research on this day focused on the material and conceptual potential of ceramics. The tour began in Tottenham, at the British and Japanese artist Nao Matsunaga’s studio, where he discussed his approach to ceramics that considers the sacredness of materials. Later, the group visited Aaron Angell in Hoxton, where he introduced his radical and psychedelic Troy Town Art Pottery workshop. After a delicious Indonesian lunch, artist Anousha Payne shared her multimedia ceramics and magical stories, including details of the York Art Gallery acquisition Of Mud of Mind (An Elusive Creature) donated by the CAS. The tour ended at Bisila Noha’s studio, where she explained her interest in ancestral heritage and the artistic contributions of women of colour.
Images courtesy of the Contemporary Art Society
Images courtesy of Laura Gallant
Contemporary Art Society
*Consultancy
CAS *Consultancy has seen continued growth and diversification over the past year. Our work developing cultural strategies has expanded into delivery of public art schemes across multiple fronts. New clients have approached us for commissioned artworks in the public realm in Westminster and the City of London, and to support the creation of permanent artworks through student competitions. Previous clients have returned, inviting *Consultancy to devise and deliver additional schemes in Cambridgeshire and across London boroughs such as Southwark. We’ve also secured further strategic work in Swansea, Wales, where we’re putting a public art strategy into action by appointing a lead artist to activate the Prince of Wales Dock.
The past 12 months have been busy. We are 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.
CAS *Consultancy
Clients & Partners, 2024–25
Bellway Latimer
Cherry Hinton LLP
BioMed Realty
City of London
City of Westminster
Colt DCS
The Crown Estate
David Walker Architecture
Eric Parry Architects
FM Conway
Fletcher Priest Architects
The Football Association
Greater London Authority
Gunnersbury Museum and Park Development Trust
Gustafson, Porter + Bowman
Lendlease
M3 Consulting Mayor of London
Oxford North Ventures
Southwark Council
Stanhope
Stantec
Steering Committee for the Humanitarian
Aid Memorial
Swansea Council
Thomas White Oxford
University of Bristol
Zoological Society of London
‘Our project Third Nature was initiated by the CAS *Consultancy, in a visionary manner, allowing for a yearlong research period before any proposal was required. During this time, with the support of CAS *Consultancy, we were able to engage with a wide range of scientists and researchers at Cambridge University. This approach represents a groundbreaking model for commissioning site-specific public art. The connections and knowledge we developed during this initial phase not only shaped the artwork created for the site but will continue to inform and enrich our practice for years to come.’
‘It has been a genuine pleasure working with CAS *Consultancy. I have felt fully supported throughout the process from commission to presentation and build. As the project has unfolded, they have helped me both reflect on decisions and manage the exchange of ideas with architects, clients and fabricators. Their unwavering support and expertise have allowed me to be ambitious and produce designs that are technically complex and carefully engineered to fit the 8 sites. Their commitment to making thought-provoking art public is invaluable.’
‘As of today, it has been 2 years, 4 months and 22 days since I found out I was selected for the One Exchange artwork commission, and for all 2 years and 4 months and 22 days, CAS *Consultancy has been fantastic. It’s been an incredibly difficult project, with owners, developers, architects, construction contractors, sub-contractors, my own fabricators and myself, and at every step of the way, someone from CAS *Consultancy has been there to support me and shield me from a lot of the bureaucracy.’
Rhys Coren, artist for One Exchange Arcade, London, 2025
Troika, artist trio formed by Eva Rucki, Conny Freyer and Sebastien Noel, artwork Third Nature for Cambridge West
James Lambert, artist of Westminster Notes for the City of Westminster, London, 2025
Ryan Gander OBE for Elephant Park
Lendlease and Southwark Council in collaboration with South London Gallery
CAS *Consultancy worked with award-winning British artist Ryan Gander on his first public art commission in London. The six life-sized bronze sculptures, Know not your place in the world (2024), were created by Ryan in collaboration with local schoolchildren. The artworks were commissioned by Lendlease for Elephant Park.
The sculptures were created through a series of workshops with children from three local primary schools. During the workshops, led by Ryan and the South London Gallery education team, the children explored possibilities for their futures together, and engaged in place-making activities relevant to their personal, local and global contexts. The project’s aim was to create positive stories for young people and help them reflect on the diversity and vibrancy of their own communities and place in the world.
Ryan’s final artwork consists of three pairs of sculptures, each created in collaboration with the children. One is a
choosing rather than clothes dictated by function or social convention. The other is an abstract sculpture, developed during a discussion-led workshop with Ryan at the end of 2021. When installed together, each sculptural pair showcases a unique interaction between the figurative and abstract elements, reflecting the artist’s interpretation and insights from class discussions.
Located in Elephant Park, the artwork enhances the area’s existing cultural landscape. Elephant Park is the £2.5bn regeneration project in Elephant & Castle jointly delivered by Lendlease and Southwark Council. It is centred around the new two-acre leafy park, and the sculptures form a memorable feature for local communities and visitors. They show the power of art in a community and inspire the next generation of artists and creative thinkers.
Ryan Gander RA OBE (b. 1976, Chester, UK) lives and works in Suffolk and London. He studied at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK; the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and the Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, Netherlands. The artist has been a Professor of Visual Art at the University of Huddersfield and holds an honorary Doctor of the Arts at the Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Suffolk. In 2017 he was awarded an OBE for services to contemporary art. In 2019 he was awarded the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. In 2022, he was made RA for the category of sculpture.
Images by Jon Lowe and Thierry Bal
Public Art Competition for Students of the Guru Nanak Sikh Academy
Colt DCS, studioNWA and London Borough of Hillingdon in collaboration with Guru Nanak Sikh Academy
CAS *Consultancy worked with Colt DCS (Data Centre Services) to deliver a public art competition in collaboration with the Guru Nanak Sikh Academy (GNSA). The initiative invited students to design a permanent public artwork for the facade of Colt DCS’s data centre at Hayes Digital Park, located near the school.
A group of Year 9 CreaTech students from GNSA was selected to take part in the project, gaining valuable insight and experience in developing and pitching ideas for a real-world public art commission. The project launched with an event featuring presentations from Colt DCS, studioNWA architects, the London Borough of Hillingdon and CAS *Consultancy.
CAS *Consultancy led the planning and delivery of the entire competition – from developing the brief and coordinating partners to facilitating the selection process. Artist James Lambert was appointed to mentor the students, leading three creative workshops throughout June 2024.
These sessions helped the students explore ideas around technology, pixelation, digital connection, and communication – all themes connected to the data centre’s purpose and digital infrastructure more broadly.
In September 2024, students presented their proposals to a Steering Group composed of representatives from Colt DCS, studioNWA, the London Borough of Hillingdon and James Lambert, with CAS *Consultancy chairing the process. The group selected three finalists, who then pitched their proposals to the London Borough of Hillingdon in October. Following this, the final winning design was chosen. The selected student began collaborating with studioNWA to refine and adapt their design for integration into the architecture of the new building.
Guru Nanak Sikh Academy is a Sikh faith all-through school in Hayes, West London. The school is committed to academic excellence, community service and fostering a global outlook among its students, rooted in Sikh values of humanity and learning.
courtesy of Contemporary Art Society *Consultancy
Images
James Lambert for City of Westminster
FM Conway, City of Westminster
CAS *Consultancy was appointed by FM Conway, City of Westminster’s delivery partner, to deliver an ambitious public art scheme across eight sites as part of an extensive refurbishment of public conveniences across central London.
The City of Westminster sought to commission an artist with a bold and graphic aesthetic, capable of weaving a compelling narrative across the borough. London-based artist James Lambert was commissioned for his playful approach using patterned-motifs that respond to the local area. Titled Westminster Notes, the series will infuse each site with wit, energy and local history through bespoke screen-printed ceramic tiles integrated into the newly designed spaces. Collaborating with Westminster and Hugh Broughton Architects, James completed the first artwork site, Victoria Embankment, in February 2025. Further sites include Parliament Street, Carnaby Street, Piccadilly Circus, Green Park, Covent Garden, Leicester Square and Westminster Bridge.
James Lambert is an artist and illustrator living and working in London. Drawing lies at the heart of his practice, often digitally manipulated combining graphic line, solid flat colour, rhythm and pattern. He is interested in the ability to communicate the intangible and the use of omnipresent visual codes and symbols to talk across divides. Tableaux take inspiration from personal experience as well as infographics encountered in the everyday. James has worked on diverse creative projects and commissions that intersect other disciplines from fashion, film and architecture to illustrating current events in newspapers. Commissions include projects with Tate Publishing, Liberty, Heatherwick Studio, The Guardian, Spectrum News, Transport for London, Thurrock Council and David Chipperfield Architects. Additionally, James has partnered with The British Fashion Council, Serpentine and Selfridges.
Images by Dirk Lindner
Troika for Cambridge West
Commissioned by the University of Cambridge as part of a site and context specific art programme developed by the Contemporary Art Society *Consultancy
In 2024, Cambridge West unveiled the public artwork Third Nature by the artist trio Troika London, which was commissioned by the University of Cambridge. It is part of a site and context specific art programme that the CAS *Consultancy has developed.
A living artwork, Third Nature consists of 15 native and non-native mature trees planted in a grid pattern typically associated with plug-ins for the creation of natural elements such as trees, plants and rocks in virtual software. The project explores the idea of ecological simulacra by investigating how virtual possibilities increasingly inform the real world, real spaces and the way we perceive, depict and construct our environment and nature itself.
The trio’s search for the right trees was supported by the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens whilst a Cambridge-based nursery provided support to source the species across the UK and Europe. The trees were planted by Blakedown Landscapes. Cambridge West is a collaborative place supported by the university that attracts talent and innovation for societal impact.
Troika is a Franco-German contemporary art group formed by Eva Rucki, Conny Freyer and Sebastien Noel in 2003. Based in London, the trio works across media in sculpture, film, installation and painting, their work contemplates humanity’s experiences and attitudes towards new technologies and how these transform our understanding and relationships to nature, each other and the wider world. Their artworks broach themes that include artificial intelligence, algorithmic data, forms of life, and virtual and physical representation systems.
Images by Angus Mill
Development
‘Much like the Deutsche Bank Collection, CAS has been a huge advocate of emerging artists and has supported them for many years. CAS was founded in 1910, so that’s over 100 years now. This year, for example, they have supported three of the four Turner Prize nominees early on in their careers with purchases for national art institutions. The impact the CAS makes to the arts in the UK cannot be overstated – they donate to 78 museums and collaborate with curators on programming to bring collections alive so its a true investment in the future of culture in the UK, supporting artists, museums and curators. I have been privileged to collaborate with them and their patrons in recent years.’
Mary Findlay, Senior Art Curator, Deutsche Bank, interviewed by James McDowell, Head of Fine Art, Aon, 2025
The Artist’s Table
Ten Years of The Artist’s Table
The Artist’s Table is a series of bespoke artist-curated experiences which typically take place twice a year. All proceeds directly benefit the charitable mission of the Contemporary Art Society.
Hosted by the artist in their studio, one of these events often involves a specially created piece of performance, in conversation, or a similar unique opportunity to experience the artist’s work in a private, intimate setting.
Over the past decade, the CAS has held Artist’s Table events with the following artists: Isaac Julien, Goshka Macuga, Haroon Mirza, Antony Gormley, Conrad Shawcross, John Stezaker, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Gillian Wearing & Michael Landy, Do Ho Suh, Edmund de Waal, Grayson Perry, Phyllida Barlow, Tai Shani, Glenn Brown, Jeremy Deller, Gilbert & George, Thomas J Price, Chantal Joffe and Alvaro Barrington.
The Artist’s Table with Jeremy Deller, 2022 (below); The Artist’s Table with Gilbert & George, 2023 (opposite). Images by Eddie Otchere
The Artist’s Table: Chantal Joffe
On Monday 4th November, the Contemporary Art Society hosted their 18th Artist’s Table with the renowned artist Chantal Joffe at her private studio in North London, raising over £113,000.
The 18th Artist’s Table was put together by an outstanding committee and guest list including Nicola Blake, Caroline Douglas, Sarah Griffin, Emma Goltz, India James, Anthony & Sophie Kingsley (Committee Chair), Eva Langret, Clare McKeon, Suling Mead, Houston & Felicia Morris, Francis Outred, Tim & Andrew Pirrie-Franks, Varvara Roza, James Sevier, Blake Shorthouse, Robert Suss and Cathy Wills.
Guests were welcomed to the artist’s private studio in North London for a kindly donated mini Moët champagne reception and ceramic painting led by Chantal and Zebra Ceramics, catered by Blo Deady. Each guest was gifted a signed apron and was invited to paint on either a mug or a plate which was later fired to provide a memento of the evening.
Guests were then invited to dine together at Bellanger, Islington where Contemporary Art Society Director, Caroline Douglas, introduced Chantal Joffe and writer and curator Hettie Judah for an insightful In Conversation by candlelight.
On display were two of eight unique watercolour works entitled Self-Portraits, Beacon Hill, 2024, specially created and gifted to the CAS on the occasion of this fundraising event.
Born in 1969, Joffe is an American-born English artist based in London and is best-known for her distinctive, figurative paintings. Her often large-scale portraits generally depict women and children and speak to the depth of human connections she builds with her subjects. In 2006, she received the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award from the Royal Academy. She is represented by Victoria Miro Gallery.
Hettie Judah in
conversation with Chantal Joffe at The Artist’s Table with Chantal Joffe, 2024 (opposite, top right) and the artist’s studio (opposite). Images by Eddie Otchere
The Artist’s Table: Alvaro Barrington
On Monday 10th March the Contemporary Art Society hosted their 19th Artist’s Table with Alvaro Barrington at his private studio in Whitechapel, London, raising over £150,000.
The event was made possible by an outstanding committee and guest list including Nicola Avery-Gee (Committee Chair), Lady Bethell, Nicola Blake, Sadie Coles, Marco Compagnoni, Tommaso Corvi-Mora, Caroline Douglas, Clare Elliott, Soo Hitchin, India Rose James, Nicolette Kwok, Yisi Li, Bianca and Stuart Roden, Andrew Pirrie Franks, Dasha Shenkman, Andreas Siegfried, Robert Suss, Tia Tanna, Leopold Thun, Angelina Volk, Cathy Wills and Mary Wolridge.
Guests were welcomed with MarGin Negronis and G&Ts, kindly donated by Rachel Verghis, CEO and founder of MarGin, and a tour of the artist’s private studio in the complex that includes the site of the first free school in London, established in 1680. After an insightful In Conversation, guests were led across the candlelit garden to dinner in the late 19th-century, neo-Jacobean assembly hall, where they enjoyed music produced by Calvin Bennion and a delicious dinner, catered by The Food Initiative, with wine generously donated by Corney & Barrow.
For the occasion, Alvaro made four unique sunset collages, Caribbean Blues (2025), which were available for sale to benefit the CAS mission.
Born in 1983 to Grenadian and Haitian parents, Barrington was raised between the Caribbean and New York, and his practice explores interconnected histories of cultural production. He considers himself primarily a painter, and his multimedia approach to image-making employs burlap, textiles, postcards and clothing, with the materials themselves functioning as visual tools while referencing their personal, political and commercial histories. He is represented by Thaddaeus Ropac, Sadie Coles and Emalin.
The Artist's Table with Alvaro Barrington, 2025 (opposite). Images by Alfi Moss-White
Supporters & Patrons
Frieze Collections Fund
2024–25
Charlotte Artus
Nicola Avery-Gee
Nicola Blake (Co-Chair)
Liesl Fichardt (Co-Chair)
Whitney Gore
Soo Hitchin
Stephanie Holmquist
Marcelle Joseph
Béatrice Lupton
Suling Mead
Minka Nyberg
Katrina Reitman
Pamela Stanger
Council
Liesl Fichardt
Emma Goltz
Soo Hitchin
Bianca Roden
Pamela Stanger
Robert Suss
Tia Collection
Gold Patrons
Nicola Avery-Gee
Michael Bradley
Marco Compagnoni
Sophie Diedrichs-Cox
Liesl Fichardt
Roopa & Thierry Girard
Emma Goltz
Whitney Gore
The Heller Family
Soo & Jonathan Hitchin
Stephanie Holmquist & Mark Allison
Sophie & Anthony Kingsley
Béatrice Lupton
Suling Mead
Keith Morris OBE & Catherine Mason
Bertrand & Elisabeth Meunier
Tim & Andrew Pirrie-Franks
Bianca Roden
Will Rosen
Varvara Roza
Dasha Shenkman OBE
Pamela Stanger
Tina Taylor
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Mary Wolridge
Jonathan Wood
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Anita Zabludowicz
Silver Patrons
Charlotte & Alan Artus
Sarah Barker
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Loraine Da Costa
Belinda de Gaudemar
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Young Patrons
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Yisi Li
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Honorary Patrons
Glenn Brown CBE & Edgar Laguinia
Jean Cass
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Penny Mason
Elizabeth Meyer
Alison Myners
Valeria Napoleone
Mark Stephens CBE
Jackson Tang
Russell Tovey
We are also grateful to our generous supporters who wish to remain anonymous.
Artist’s Table Committee for Chantal Joffe
Charlotte Artus
Liesl Fichardt
Sophie Kingsley (Chair)
Adam Prideaux
Katrina Reitman
Varvara Roza
Mole Smith
Nick Smith
Cathy Wills
Artist’s Table Committee for Alvaro Barrington
Nicola Avery-Gee (Chair)
Nicola Blake
Marco Compagnoni
Soo Hitchin
Yisi Li
Andrew Pirrie-Franks
Andreas Siegfried
Development Board
Charlotte Artus (until July 2024)
Nicola Blake Bertrand Coste (until June 2024)
Liesl Fichardt (Co-Chair)
Whitney Gore
India James (from January 2025)
Nicola Jones (from January 2025)
Béatrice Lupton
Suling Mead (Co-Chair)
Ama Ofori-Darko
Robert Suss
Mary Wolridge
Trustees
Trustees
Robert Suss (Chair)
Nicola Blake
Tommaso Corvi-Mora
Liesl Fichardt
Timothy Franks
Emma Goltz
Isabelle Henkell
von Ribbentrop
Suling Mead
Ama Ofori-Darko
Béatrice Lupton
Tim Marlow
Keith Morris
Valeria Napoleone
Francis Outred
Charlene Prempeh
James Robertson
Bianca Roden
John Shield
Ruth Warder
Cathy Wills
Anna Yang
Caroline Douglas
Director
Sophia Bardsley
Deputy Director
Curatorial
Christine Takengny
The Roden Senior Curator, Museum Acquisitions
Dr Paula Zambrano
Curator of Programmes
Isis Ky
Curatorial Trainee
Digital
Lydia Figes
Curator of Digital
Jordan Mouzouris
Curator, Digital (until October 2024)
Meej Douglas
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Coordinator
Tania Adams
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Ksenya Blokhina
Copyright Manager
Development
Dida Tait
Head of Philanthropy
Karis Okereke
Manager, Development Manager (until December 2024)
