The March Art Diary first highlights exhibitions in Essex (Firstsite, Focal Point and Beecroft Galleries) followed by group shows engaging with spirituality and social issues (St John’s Waterloo, National, Halcyon and Fitzrovia Galleries, Cambridge, Norfolk and Norwich Festivals, Sainsbury Centre) before ending with several solo or duo exhibitions (Elizabeth Xi Bauer, Serpentine North, Ikon, and Tache Galleries, Wallace Collection and The Stengel Collection), many of which draw on different faith traditions linking them back to the theme of the exhibition at St John’s Waterloo, Cloud of Witnesses.
Through a provocative mix of new work featuring photography, screenprint, neon, sound and mixed media at Firstsite Gallery, Elsa James will confront Britain’s “national amnesia” regarding its role in the transatlantic slave trade, bringing an alternative perspective on how we engage with the past. ‘It Should Not Be Forgotten’ seeks to capture “the rupture, erasure, fragmentation and interconnectedness of Black Life in the diaspora” by navigating the harrowing themes of chattel enslavement and its aftermath on contemporary Black life and crafts fictional narratives to contend with colonial archival records. “The work for this exhibition is frank and unapologetic,” she explains. “It urges audiences to reflect on three centuries of Britain’s involvement in the trafficking of African people—recognising it as a crime against humanity that has led to racist ideologies that still impact Black people today.”
Provocative and polemical, ‘It Should Not Be Forgotten’ features two large text-based neon sculptures to serve as ‘Declarations’. At the beginning of the exhibition, visitors encounter the statement BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN TROUBLED…, and towards the end, they are greeted by the affirmation AND STILL, WE RISE, inspired by Maya Angelou’s celebrated volume of poetry, ‘And Still I Rise’.
A large-scale photographic installation – located on the main floor of the gallery – draws inspiration from American academic Christina Sharpe and her idea that “the slave ship marks and haunts contemporary Black life in the diaspora.” For the photographs, James collaborated with choreographer and movement director Seke Chimutengwende to create larger-than-life-sized images of herself so that viewers are obligated to walk over them. An original cello composition by London-based Estonian musician Kirke Gross accompanies this piece.
‘It Should Not Be Forgotten’ marks James’ first solo exhibition at Firstsite, following six years of collaboration with the gallery. Firstsite Director Sally Shaw MBE says: “This exhibition is about more than the past—it’s an invitation to engage with histories that still shape our world today. Through art, we have the chance to listen, learn, and see from new perspectives, encouraging us to take a collective journey towards understanding and repair.”
Rafał Zajko’s solo exhibition ‘The Spin Off’ at Focal Point Gallery is a theatrical installation reflecting memory, repetition, reappearance, cyclicality, preservation and pickling, following his practice of world-building. These new works employ folklore, pop culture, and science fiction to reflect on the late-capitalist drive to eternally refresh the familiar – to ‘foreverise’. Coined by author Grafton Tanner, ‘foreverism’ is defined as a contemporary cultural movement aiming to excavate and elongate the past. Foreverisms include the reviving of trends, the remixing of classic songs, the expansion of cinematic universes, the reboo,; thespin-offf.
The first gallery contains ‘Funny Games’, Zajko’s largest work to date. This theatrical installation features modular platforms that house elliptical ceramic reliefs, egg-shaped chairs, and a towering egg totem, all designed to be reconfigured daily by the gallery staff through diagrammatic instructions. This work, which seems to hover within the space, draws from the spatial qualities of religious architecture and urban design, exploring themes of symmetry, repetition, and psychological possibilities of urban space. Located in the second gallery is ‘A Star Is Born’, a striking, self-performing sculpture that comes to life through light and smoke to explore the tension between nostalgia and progress – a central concern of foreverism.
Zajko also presents a series of frescos developed using raw pigments, drawn from the earth and laid using porous ceramic tiles. The incongruous presence of this ancient technique, used here for the first time, further highlights the artist’s interest in non-linear cycles. The frescos reappear throughout the exhibition alongside other recurring motifs; in this way, the object becomes a reference preserved, manifesting an internal feedback loop which engages at once the past, the present and the future.
‘Into The Zone’ at the Beecroft Gallery is a group exhibition of artists who have explored the Thames Estuary territory from diverse but overlapping perspectives. Each of the artists included present projects which interrogate the estuary territory from different vantages and through exploratory journeys. The exhibition relates to Michael Upton’s ongoing practice as a research exploration of the Thames Estuary as a commons, with a particular focus on the environment. He questions how our complex and multi-faceted relationship with the river, sea and intertidal zone can be articulated through creative media, particularly photography.
Anna Kroeger’s cyanotypes document her long psychogeographic walks along both sides of the river, exploring her inner topography and the landscapes in front of her. Mike Seaborne’s work taken on long walks documents the area’s shifting, sometimes vanished post-industrial landscapes. Michael Upton uses the paradoxical repetitiveness and uniqueness of sea swims to emotional response to the estuary and its waters.
Mark Taylor finds a dream of flying in swimmers caught mid-leap from Leigh’s wharves. Ian Tokelove captures the sometimes surreal natural and manmade beauty of the wild and seemingly remote spaces just beyond London on journeys by foot or kayak. David George’s work examines the sublime in the zone’s post-industrial landscapes through photographs taken on precisely planned missions to regions rarely visited by day and night.
Informed by her own relationship with the coastal landscape, Anna Lukala investigates the vulnerability of tidal ecosystems, exploring how human interference endangers these precarious environments. A film of Arbonauts’ site-specific, climate-responsive work, SILT, speaks of dystopia and hope through a performance and soundscape in the intertidal zone. Gerolamo Gnecchi and Sylak Ravenspine record their hyper-local project focused on a small square of Benfleet’s mudflats, using a collectively constructed grid to pay close attention to the estuary’s seasonal changes.
‘Cloud of Witnesses’ is an exhibition that showcases a unique set of artists who have come together to explore faith and divinity while provoking the viewer to think differently about how these have traditionally been portrayed. Working ecumenically and across different faiths, St John’s Waterloo and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, advised by Art + Christianity, have come together to raise awareness, understanding and mutual respect for the collective witness of faith communities in the UK through this diverse display of artworks. Through the exhibition, they aspire to create a richer dialogue about how we see and understand faith, divinity and the value of creativity, drawing inspiration from different faiths, cultures and experiences.
The artworks represent or allude to persons or deities from any religion and from any era. These works, submitted by the artists via an open call in Autumn 2024, were selected by a panel of five judges who based their decision on the integrity of the exhibition theme, the innovation of style and technique as well as the creative skill in responding to an inter-faith and/or racial justice narrative. Including work by artists such as Iain Malcolm McKillop, Lorna May Wadsworth, Michael Takeo Magruder, Richard Kenton Webb, and Sophie Hacker, these are artworks that explore faith and divinity while provoking the viewer to think differently about how these have traditionally been portrayed. Racial justice and inter-faith integrity are the central inspiration for this exhibition.
Euchar Gravina, Artistic Director of St John’s Waterloo, adds: “As we mark St John’s Waterloo’s 200th anniversary, our focus is not only on celebrating the building itself but also the rich diversity of our congregation and the multifaith community surrounding us. Rebuilt in 1951 as the Festival of Britain’s Exhibition Church, we are committed to opening further our creative spaces to honour and engage with this vibrant community.”
‘Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300‒1350’ marks the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery and celebrates the earliest pictures in its collection. It includes some of the most innovative works in the Western painting tradition, many of which were part of larger ensembles before they were separated and are being brought back together.
These influential and precious paintings, many in gold ground, are among the highlights of a rarely staged exhibition of art of the first half of the 14th century. As ‘The Telegraph’ states, with this exhibition, Christian art becomes the National Gallery’s next smash hit. The exhibition of approximately a hundred works explores the evolving status of painting among the arts of Europe. It shows the central role that Sienese artists played in this story, at home, in other Italian centres, and in the cities and courts of Europe.
The exhibition brings together several surviving panels from the monumental double-sided altarpiece known as the ‘Maestà’, painted by Sienese artist Duccio di Buoninsegna for the city’s cathedral. This is the first double-sided altarpiece in Western painting and marks a fundamental shift in narrative art. This remarkably complex work was dismantled in the 18th century. The National Gallery’s own three panels from the ‘Maestà’, will be reunited with other paintings from this ensemble detailing episodes from Christ’s life. These include ‘Christ and the Woman of Samaria’ from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid and ‘The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew’ from the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.
‘Sacred & Profane’ at Halcyon Gallery draws from the history of religious art, exploring its evolving role from a tool for devotion and education in theocratic societies to a liberated medium for critique and commentary. The exhibition explores how artists reimagine religious iconography and deeply rooted art historical themes by addressing contemporary phenomena. Through the works included, the viewer is invited to reflect on the role of spirituality in today’s world, and by reimagining ancient symbols and narratives, the art challenges perceptions of faith, culture and society. The exhibition includes works by Andy Warhol, David LaChapelle, Dominic Harris, Graceland London, Mitch Griffiths, Pedro Paricio, Robert Montgomery, and Santiago Montoya.
Griffiths is an artist who has immersed himself in the culture of the Old Masters, reading widely on art history and frequently visiting London’s museums to examine seminal works. While his artistic language owes a debt to the past, he addresses twenty-first-century issues through large, complex canvases packed with detail, which expose the immoralities and pretences of our time. Many of his images appear to echo familiar religious iconography, however, their symbolism reflects a modern quest for redemption from the overriding self-obsession and consumerism of contemporary society, with its vanity and greed, addictions and needless suffering.
Santiago Montoya’s practice employs diverse media, including global paper currencies, precious stones and materials, sculpture, and neon, to express a multitude of ideas that explore the notion of value. The works generate a discourse on nationalism, commodities and the universal consequences and nuances of the production and distribution of wealth. Montoya’s works combine a wry humour and acute insight on global subjects that affect us all, and the inherent systems and structures that we live by.
‘Shape Shift’ is a new exhibition by the arts and mental health charity Hospital Rooms in partnership with the Fitzrovia Chapel, the chapel for the former Middlesex Hospital. Hospital Rooms radically reimagine environments, bringing creativity, colour and kindness to mental health hospitals. This show tells the stories of artworks from a three-year project at Hellesdon Hospital in Norwich, which commissioned 15 international artists – Sarah Dwyer, Errol Francis, Ghislaine Leung, Michael Landy, Rosa-Johan Uddoh, Shepherd Manyika, Jade de Montserrat, Nengi Omuku, Ṣọlá Olúlòde, Fabian Peake, Heather Phillipson, Holly Sandiford, Dolly Sen, Mark Titchner, and Ken Nwadiogbu – to work with the hospital’s patients and staff, creating major artworks.
Through this collaboration process, imagining and working, new and poetic dreams came into being while personal, domestic, institutional and clinical narratives collided. This exhibition attempts to navigate these collisions and to generate further discussion. It is set within the walls of the Fitzrovia Chapel, a building where patients, families and staff would once come for calm, respite and sanctuary during busy and sometimes fraught hospital days and nights. This unique project is full of contradictions, conflict and conviviality, but above all possibility. Central to the work is the embrace of the unknown, the acceptance of doubt and the potential of the new.
The show includes a recreation of Fabian Peake’s ‘The Forest’ for which he scribed the life stories of workshop participants in his signature mirror writing directly onto a waiting room wall at Hellesdon. Sarah Dwyer’s 20-metre-long mural ‘Shapeshifters’ covered the walls of a mental health ward at Hellesdon. Inspired by workshop exercises where participants were encouraged to vigorously draw 20-second images, engaging their bodies in movement and feeling rather than rational thought, it portrayed a series of abstract figures. ‘Shapeshifters’ was subsequently removed from the ward following complex and situational responses to the work and will be reincarnated in the chapel.
‘The Haunted’ involves new work by multidisciplinary artist Joanna Holland, with performances taking place in Cambridge (as part of Cambridge Festival) and Great Yarmouth (as part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival). A collection of performances, talks, readings and soundscapes which explore liminal space, dreaming, sick bodies, horror and the uncanny, it offers insights into how people with chronic illness and encountering parasomnia undergo a change in their experience of space and time. Also showcased is work by other artists – female-led narratives by Disabled and non-Disabled artists share what it’s like to exist in an ever-shifting, ‘in-between’ space.
Holland’s new work ‘Reverie – a dream of autoimmunity’ will be premiered. This work translates a short story about chronic illness into a live performance. Stemming from the artist’s lived experience, ‘Reverie’ brings to life her vivid and recurring nightmare, which she experienced repeatedly during the pandemic and periods of hospitalisation. Set in the grand hall of an abandoned Manor house, now in a dilapidated state of disrepair, ‘Reverie’ shares how it feels to “live, fly and fall” with autoimmunity – where the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s organs and tissue, causing inflammation and damage. The story is told as a dream-like monologue by actress Louise Kim Salter and directed by Stéphanie Joalland. It offers insights into what it’s like to have a body that doesn’t behave as you want and need it to and invites audiences to consider notions of the haunted body alongside the more traditional haunted house.
‘The Haunted’ offers insights into what it feels like emotionally to be haunted by bodies, haunted by sickness, haunted by dreams, sharing how people with chronic illness and encountering parasomnia undergo a change in their experience of space and time.
The future of our oceans is explored in the Sainsbury Centre’s extensive 2025 exhibition programme entitled ‘Can the Seas survive us?’ This new programme charts a course through the story of the world’s oceans and the precarious future they may be heading towards. Featuring contemporary art, historical paintings, ancient atlases and maps from across the globe, three concurrent exhibitions examine the choices shaping our future due to climate change, while emphasising the vital importance of the oceans and the life beneath the waves for the viability of our shared future.
The trio of exhibitions – ‘A World of Water’, ‘Darwin in Paradise Camp: Yuki Kihara’ and ‘Sea Inside’ – consider the seas’ fluidity as a powerful metaphor; ranging from our need to navigate a way through turbulent times, to champion and learn from Indigenous knowledge, seize the opportunities presented by the sea as a regenerative, sustainable energy source, recognising its relentless, destructive power in ways that are crucially felt and experienced by low-lying small island nations such as the Maldives and Kiribati, along with coastal communities, including several here in Norfolk.
‘A World of Water’ brings together works by British and international artists from the last 250 years who have all offered a unique perspective of evolving marine ecosystems and oceanic habitats. ‘Paradise Camp’ is a celebrated work by Yuki Kihara, an interdisciplinary artist of Sāmoan and Japanese descent, which will be exhibited alongside a newly commissioned work titled Darwin Drag.’ Sea Inside’ features experimental contemporary artworks across a range of media by artists including Shuvinai Ashoona, Marcus Coates, Evan Ifekoya, Laure Prouvost and Hiroshi Sugimoto in a unique oceanic experience that explores humanity’s interconnections, interrelationships, and immersion in oceans.
‘Harvest’, at Elizabeth Xi Bauer, is a duo exhibition of works by Marta Jakobovits and Anderson Borba, artists whose practices are rooted in exploring materiality. Their work focuses on experimentation: failing, reworking techniques, and creating a visual language using their chosen mediums, clay and wood, respectively. The exhibition title derives from the artists’ processes, as both employ manual gestures to harvest their works by researching, respecting, and understanding their chosen materials. Both use natural elements, mimic nature and initiate personal experiences, including wider societal and political concerns, through their work.
In this exhibition, Jacobovits’ installations continue her trope of borrowing and mimicking natural forms, presenting a unique visual dialogue, namely working with collected and newly found stones, leaves and tree bark. Her contact with the natural is a meditative practice, as the artist’s objects all carry and create memory anew. The artist’s works speak to the intrinsic connection between art and nature, capturing a tactile relationship that is central to her production. Ultimately, the artist’s chosen medium is derived from nature, clay. Jakobovits creates several groupings of similar objects and adds to them over time. The artist experiments with modes of display to create new narratives and installations tailored to the context of an exhibition. Through this action, Jakobovits instils new dialogues, memories and meanings.
The artist explains, “[My work is] a personal approach to trying to make the invisible of the conscious and subconscious psyche visible through [my chosen] materials. This is an ongoing process; it is very important to me. This is my life. Making shapes, families of shapes, putting them in a relationship with natural materials, such as sand, pebbles, leaves, different plants, barks and shells, or even bringing them back as a reverence for nature. [It is] an intuitive dialogue between me and what is outside of me.”
Sculptor Anderson Borba’s practice involves carving, collaging, painting, cutting up, reassembling and burning found materials, particularly industrial-grade wood, as well as cardboard, fabric, magazine pages, and textiles. The artist’s works retain a readymade quality. Borba uses these materials as a starting point to carve and mould his initial shapes and forms in his process-guided approach to making. Embracing the use of found materials in his works, Borba frequently simulates nature, for example, shells and rocks, even presenting those encrusted with plastic as a commentary on humankind’s impact on the natural world. The artist’s fragmented assemblages and his exploration of surfaces create thought-provoking works that engage with Brazil’s societal and political affairs. His works carry the weight of this exploitation of natural resources as they incorporate the look and smell of endless burnt forests as well as the plastic that dominates the earth’s ecosystems.
‘Arpita Singh: Remembering’ at Serpentine North will chart key works from across six decades of her prolific career, exploring the full breadth of her practice, ranging from large-scale oil paintings to more intimate watercolours and ink drawings. The show will celebrate her experimentation with colour and her figurative exploration of her emotional responses to social upheaval and international humanitarian crises. The artist says: “Remembering draws from old memories from which these works emerged. Whether I am aware or not, there is something happening at my core. It is how my life flows.”
Singh’s paintings centre on her emotional and psychological state, drawing from Bengali folk art and Indian stories while incorporating Hindu themes and imagery interwoven with experiences of social upheaval and global conflict. The exhibition traces her luminous works from the 1960s to recent years, showcasing her large-scale oil paintings as well as her more intimate watercolours and ink drawings. ‘Remembering’ presents her exploration of Surrealism, figuration, abstraction, and her inspiration from Indian miniature paintings. Since the 1990s, Singh has increasingly explored themes of motherhood, the ageing female form, feminine sensuality, vulnerability, and violence, demonstrating the impact of relationships and external events on the emotional and psychological landscape of the artist. Her works are intimate portrayals of domestic and inner life but are equally concerned with women’s experiences navigating the outside world.
‘What Did You Want To See?’ by British artist Mahtab Hussain at Ikon explores the fine line between photographic documentation and surveillance culture, addressing the intelligence sites established by the media and the state to monitor the Muslim community in Britain. The exhibition features new work, including Hussain’s systematic documentation of 160 Birmingham mosques, revealing the diversity of mosque architecture; portraits of Birmingham residents which highlight the city’s vibrant Muslim community; a communal space within the gallery aimed at fostering inclusion and intercultural dialogue; and ‘What Did You Want To See?’ an installation simulating a site under surveillance.
During the summers of 2023 and 2024, Hussain, raised in Birmingham, systematically photographed the city’s mosques, capturing 160 in total. Displayed in a 16 x 10 grid, the installation offers an architectural typology reminiscent of works by German artists Hilla and Bernd Becher. The collection reveals the diversity of mosque architecture, from the iconic domes and minarets of Birmingham’s Central Mosque to the Arts & Crafts designs of terraced houses and yellow brick churches. Each photograph stands unique, resisting singular interpretation and analysis. Collectively, they underscore the pervasive act of data collection and classification.
Hussain says, “Through my work, I strive to reflect the richness and resilience of Muslim communities, celebrating their individuality while challenging stereotypes. Each portrait and installation is a story, an invitation to connect, and a reminder of the beauty in our shared humanity.”
Alongside is ‘Htein Lin: Escape,’ a major solo exhibition by the multidisciplinary artist from Myanmar. Evoking the artist’s lifelong commitment to documenting human experience in difficult times, this exhibition shows a comprehensive selection of his paintings made while he was a political prisoner from 1998 to 2004 on prison uniforms and found textiles, alongside drawing, sculpture, video, and new work. Also included are new artworks made with residents of HMP Grendon, Buckinghamshire, exploring prison art in Britain and Myanmar.
Lin’s new large-scale painting, ‘Fiery Hell’, portrays the plight of Myanmar’s rural populations, including ethnic and religious minorities, caught up in the ongoing civil war. Resilience in the face of decades of oppression in the country is highlighted in ‘A Show of Hands’, an installation of 12 plaster casts of the hands of former political prisoners from Myanmar. At the centre of the exhibition are over 45 works from the ‘000235’ series. Titled after Lin’s International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) number, they demonstrate the ingenuity and originality of his art made in confinement. His visual language is further explored in a selection of drawings from the 1990s and 2000s, shown in public for the first time, while video works give further insight into his writing and performance.
Tache is a new London Gallery devoted to championing emerging artists. It is opening on 7 March 2025 with ‘Fantastical Autonomy’, a solo exhibition of new and recent works by painter, photographer and jazz musician Jorge Jobim. The exhibition features a spectrum of large-scale oil paintings defined by their colourful palettes and psychedelic compositions. Working under his alter ego, Jobim’s works wrestle with the construct of self; his practice is guided by a quest for understanding his external world and internal conflicts.
By embracing spontaneity and the unconscious in his artistic process, Jobim’s compositions are dialogues between intention and chance, performance and introspection, clarity and psychedelia. For Jobim, painting and playing jazz are deeply intertwined—each is a performative act, and one aids the other. As a result, the works have an inherent musicality, where patterns and shapes collide in a dance of visual harmonics, weaving recurrent motifs such as branches and octopuses that represent Jobim’s personal entanglements.
A 10-metre-long canvas is suspended from the gallery ceiling, with seating placed beneath it to encourage visitors to engage and spend time with the artwork. In addition, four photographs are presented. Captured at Speakers Corner in London and Tinghir in Morocco, the images are bathed in bright light, creating a dreamlike quality that echoes Jobim’s distinctive painting style. For the artist, photography is a way to connect with himself, providing a sense of presence and grounding. Discussing his practice more broadly, he states: “I view the self as a fire – something you can’t get too close to or define by shape. My practice fuels this fire, allowing it to radiate while keeping it from spreading untamed.”
‘Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur’ is the largest contemporary exhibition ever held at the Wallace Collection. It includes ceramics, tapestries, furniture, and collage, displayed alongside some of the Wallace Collection’s masterpieces, which helped inspire and shape Perry’s vision for this landmark exhibition.
‘Delusions of Grandeur’ interrogates the nature of craft-making and our drive for perfectionism. Intricate handcrafted objects are shown alongside works made with digital technology, comparing an object that may have taken thousands of hours to create against one that was possible with the click of a button. Through these contrasting approaches, Perry asks the viewer to contemplate questions concerning authenticity and the artist’s role in the future.
As part of this questioning, ‘Delusions of Grandeur’ also focuses on ‘outsider art’ with the inclusion of works by Aloïse Corbaz and Madge Gill. Sparked by the discovery that Madge Gill had exhibited at the Wallace Collection in 1942, the life and work of these outsider artists has helped unlock Perry’s own response, which also draws upon his own childhood experiences. While developing the exhibition, the fictional persona of Shirley Smith came into being, a woman who wakes up in Hertford House after a mental health crisis and believes herself to be the rightful heir to the treasures that surround her. Through ancestral portraits and Old Master copies, this imagined life touches on the real stories, influences and difficult experiences that art can bring to the fore.
Perry says: “Creating exhibitions with museums has always been a source of joy for me, formalising my lifelong interest in reinterpreting artefacts through my own lens. Working with the Wallace Collection has offered both excitement and a unique challenge: I was captivated by the craftsmanship seen in the collection, but I struggled with the opulent aesthetic which I found cloying at times. Fortunately, I worked out a strategy that helped me find a fresh perspective. I am very grateful to Xavier Bray for planting the seed of this exhibition in my head and to the staff and trustees of the Wallace Collection for allowing me to play in their jewel box.” Bray, Director of The Wallace Collection, says: “Grayson Perry is an artist who engages with the world like no other. His work resonates deeply with the viewer – questioning, provoking, and reflecting contemporary society from the sublime to the absurd.”
Finally, the Stengel Collection in Florence has an exhibition commemorating the centenary of the birth of Hungarian postwar artist Karl Stengel. The exhibition offers a unique opportunity to discover Stengel’s remarkable life and art through images that include paintings, works on paper and mixed-media compositions spanning the 1970s to the 2010s. This retrospective also features his personal ‘drawing diaries’ – albums and journals filled with his drawings and writings – shown publicly for the first time, offering rare insights into his dynamic, introspective and highly expressive practice.
Through his distinctive visual language that blends abstraction with representation, Stengel’s work evokes the inner world of human experience, exploring art as a form of emotional and philosophical expression. His career is also deeply rooted in the historical and cultural landscape of the 20th century: born in Novi Sad, his early years were shaped by the upheavals of World War II, including his service as a soldier and imprisonment in a Siberian Gulag, where – incredibly – he discovered his love of art and held his first exhibition. He later trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest and, after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, continued his studies at the Academy in Munich, where he settled and immersed himself in the European arts scene.
The exhibition traces the international artistic traditions that inspired and enriched Stengel’s practice, particularly during his extensive travels around world from the 1960s onward. His signature use of spontaneous brushstrokes and bright colours – evocative of his long-sought political and social freedom – has drawn comparison with European and American postwar movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel and German Expressionism. The exhibition includes works such as ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Untitled 8’, where solitary figures, haunting faces and doorway-like shapes evoke mental and emotional landscapes of memory and self-reflection. These existential allusions often recall the artist’s own experience of exile, isolation and trauma, resonating strongly with the themes and concerns of many other postwar artists.
The exhibition also highlights Stengel’s lifelong passion for other creative forms, evident in the musical and theatrical nature of his compositions. His work incorporates lines of poetry and titles that pay homage to literary figures, including, for example, ‘Tribute to Blaise Cendrars 1’, while his diaries are filled with references to beloved authors such as Antonio Tabucchi, Fernando Pessoa and Charles Bukowski. Stengel often used music scores and book pages as collaged surfaces for many of his drawings and paintings, including ‘Untitled 7’ and these demonstrate his ability to weave layers of historical, personal and cultural meaning together throughout his art.
‘Elsa James: It Should Not Be Forgotten’, 29 March – 6 July 2025, Firstsite Gallery – Visit Here
‘Rafał Zajko: The Spin Off’, 26 March – 7 June 2025, Big Screen Southend Focal Point Gallery – Visit Here
‘Into The Zone – Journeys in the Thames Estuary’, 22 February – 11 May 2025, Beecroft Art Gallery – Visit Here
‘Cloud of Witnesses: Inter-faith Exhibition and Competition Winners’, 4 March – 27 April 2025, St John’s Waterloo – Visit Here
‘Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300‒1350’, 8 March – 22 June 2025, National Gallery – Visit Here
‘Sacred & Profane’, 27 February – 20 April 2025, Halcyon Gallery – Visit Here
‘Shape Shift: Reflections on Art in Mental Health Settings’, 13 – 25 March 2025, The Fitzrovia Chapel – Visit Here
‘The Haunted’: Joanna Holland with Lucy Clark, Leah Clements, Louise Kim Salter and Alice Vernon’ 26 & 30 March 2025, The Junction, Cambridge, and 19 May 2025, St George’s Theatre, Great Yarmouth – Visit Here
‘A World of Water’, 15 March – 3 August 2025, ‘Darwin in Paradise Camp: Yuki Kihara’, 15 March 2025 – 3 August 2025, and ‘Sea Inside’, 7 June – 26 October 2025, Sainsbury Centre – Visit Here
‘Harvest: Marta Jakobovits and Anderson Borba’, 7 March – 26 April 2025, Elizabeth Xi Bauer, Deptford – Visit Here
‘Arpita Singh, Remembering’, 20 March – 27 July 2025, Serpentine North Gallery – Visit Here
‘Mahtab Hussain: What Did You Want To See?’, 20 March – 1 June 2025, Ikon Gallery – Visit Here
‘Htein Lin: Escape’, 20 March – 1 June 2025, Ikon Gallery – Visit Here
‘Fantastical Autonomy’ 6 March – 10 April 2025, Tache Gallery – Visit Here
‘Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur’, 28 March – 26 October 2025, Wallace Collection – Visit Here
‘Karl Stengel: 100 Years’, 4 March – 11 April 2025, The Stengel Collection, Florence – Visit Here
Lead image: Marcus Coates, Humpback Whale, 2016, single channel HD video (film still). © Marcus Coates. Courtesy the artist and Kate MacGarry, London