For the January 2026 Art Diary, I have selected my personal selection of upcoming exhibitions and installations throughout 2026. These reflect my regular interests in art that engages with creativity, ecclesiastical contexts, environmental concerns, reconciliation, relationality, remembrance, social justice, or spirituality. Venues featured include, among others, Guildford Cathedral, Two Temple Place, American Museum & Gardens, Sir John Soane’s Museum, Wiltshire Museum, Compton Verney, National Gallery, Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts, The Courtauld, Serpentine North Gallery, and Laing Art Gallery.
January:
‘Virgin & Child’ by Chris Gollon, is reinstalled in Guildford Cathedral.
Painted for Guildford in 2013, as part of the national touring exhibition ‘Incarnation, Mary and Women from the Bible’, the work is placed in the north transept overlooking the Quire, after a twelve year absence.©Russell Sach
‘Virgin & Child’, the largest painting from the ‘Incarnation, Mary and Women from the Bible’ exhibition (2014 – 2016), which began at Guildford Cathedral and toured to the cathedrals of Norwich, Chichester, Durham and Hereford, has now been reinstalled in Guildford Cathedral, on a long-term loan from the Chris Gollon Estate. ‘Virgin and Child’, painted in 2013, is the largest single canvas Chris Gollon painted. It shows the Virgin brushing her cheek gently against that of the Infant. The two figures seem to float in a white void, highlighting this touching moment of loving intimacy between mother and child.
Visit Here
Maureen Paley is hosting Gordon Robichaux for Condo London 2026 with an exhibition of recent work by Agosto Machado at Studio M (17 January – 14 February 2026). For his London debut, Machado will present a group of his shrines and altars alongside related ephemera and works by Sheyla Baykal, Peter Hujar, and Jack Smith. Machado is a Chinese-Spanish-Filipino-American performance artist, activist, archivist, muse, caretaker, and friend to countless celebrated and underground visual and performing artists. He has been a vital participant and witness to cultural and creative life in New York since the early sixties, from art, theatre, performance, and film to social and political counterculture and the dawn of the gay liberation movement.
Visit Here
‘The Weight of Being: Vulnerability, Resilience and Mental Health in Art’ at Two Temple Place (24 January – 19 April 2026) will showcase how artists have captured the psychological and emotional impact of societal pressures, resilience in the face of adversity, and existential uncertainty. Through depictions of deeply personal and collective experiences, it examines the powerful ways in which artists capture vulnerability, resilience, and their search for solace. The exhibition includes the work of a diverse range of twentieth-century and contemporary artists and their varying perspectives.
Visit Here
‘Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love’ presents a survey of 53 artworks by Jeffrey Gibson at Boise Art Museum. Spanning sixteen years, this major exhibition bursts with Gibson’s bold patterns and brilliant colours. Gibson, who is of Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, blends aspects of Indigenous art and culture with modernist art traditions, navigating and disrupting expectations placed on Indigenous artists while bringing messages of hope. Punching bags, flags, banners, and illuminated signs are adorned and converted from utilitarian items to art objects that vibrate with spiritual power, carrying his belief that objects and people alike have the potential for radical transformation.
Visit Here
February:
‘Kith & Kin | The Quilts of Gee’s Bend’ at the American Museum & Gardens in Bath (14 February – 21 June 2026) will celebrate the extraordinary work of a group of African American women from a remote river island community in Alabama, which embodies a 200-year tradition of making quilts that hold both profound artistic and political significance. Politically and historically, the quilts reflect resilience and self-sufficiency, as they were born out of necessity in an economically deprived, racially segregated region. The civil rights movement brought attention to these women, who became symbols of Black empowerment and cultural pride.
Visit Here
‘Time and The Architecture of Memory: Selected Paintings 1985 – 2025’ (27 February – 10 April 2026) sees Hughie O’Donoghue exhibiting 10 works that span over four decades, with five large-scale and five smaller, showcasing his mastery of mixing figuration with abstraction to create emotionally intense, large-scale explorations of collective memory, personal history and myth. The exhibition will be at 447 Space, formerly the studio of painters Sean Scully and Liliane Tomasko, which is now dedicated to providing space for artists over 50 who have never had a solo exhibition in New York.
March:
Soane office, Royal Academy Lecture Drawing of the work of Sir John Vanbrugh, ‘Goose-Pie House’, London: Whitehall, perspective, SM 75/4/4
Three hundred years after his death, a major new exhibition exploring one of the UK’s greatest architects, Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726), will open at Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. Vanbrugh designed some of the UK’s most admired and loved country houses, including Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. He is buried at one of my previous churches, St Stephen Walbrook. Sir John Soane (1753-1837) cited Vanbrugh as one of his great influences, remarking that he had “all the fire and power of Michelangelo and Bernini”. ‘Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture’ (4 March – 28 June 2026) will feature never-before-exhibited drawings from the collections of the V&A, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the National Portrait Gallery and Sir John Soane’s Museum, including many in Vanbrugh’s own hand.
Visit Here
‘John Piper in the South Country’ (7 March – 7 June 2026) is the first ever exhibition devoted to showing how John Piper (1903-92) responded to the landscape and architecture of Wiltshire and Dorset. Renowned for working in a variety of media, the exhibition will also feature one of Piper’s finest early collages, depicting the Neolithic site at Avebury. His strong Anglican faith also imbued his work, and he painted a number of churches in the locality, from Inglesham to Knowlton and Britwell Salome. In November 1940, while working as an official War artist, Piper persuaded the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC) to allow him to concentrate on painting bombed churches, which led him to depict the ruins of architectural landmarks in cities such as Bath and Bristol.
Visit Here
‘Strings Attached: The Art of Puppetry in Ditchling’ at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft (28 March –27 September 2026) explores the revival of puppetry after the First World War. The creative network of makers, writers and composers who helped bring it to the stage included Hilary Pepler. A key figure in Ditchling’s artistic community, his love of theatre led him to write puppet plays performed by figures carved by Joseph Cribb and other members of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic. Pepler also wrote and produced mimes – silent, masked performances that featured in some of the earliest BBC broadcasts.
Visit Here
The Autobiraggraphy of her called Elizabeth Allen, In the Year of Grace 1961 © Jamie Woodley and Compton Verney
‘Troublemakers and Prophets: Elizabeth Allen and other visionary artists’ (28 March – 30 August 2026) at Compton Verney is the first contemporary exhibition of work by the late textile artist, Elizabeth Allen (1883-1967). The show marks the 60th anniversary of her debut exhibition at the age of 82, at the Crane Kalman Gallery. A key highlight is Allen’s textile autobiography, Autobiraggraphy (1961), which has never been publicly displayed before. Her work responds to stories she heard on the radio, as well as the Bible and Apocryphal books, from which she derived divine calculations and images.
Visit Here
2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Suffolk-born artist, John Constable (1776-1837). The significance of Constable’s Anglican faith to his work has been recognised recently through the writings of Richard Humphreys, David Thistlethwaite, and Bendor Grosvenor. To commemorate his life and work, Colchester + Ipswich Museums will present Constable 250, at the heart of which will be three landmark exhibitions, featuring major loans from across the UK. The first, ‘Constable: A Cast of Characters’ (28 March – 14 June 2026), will introduce visitors to the people who inspired and supported the artist. Drawing on objects within Colchester + Ipswich Museums collections, such as letters and costumes, along with important loans from private collections and the Government Art Collection, the exhibition represents a chance to explore Constable’s portraiture.
Visit Here https://ipswich.cimuseums.org.uk/constable250/
April:
‘Speaking in Tongues’ (4 April – 23 August 2026) at ICA LA will feature an intergenerational, international group of contemporary artists who embrace art as a conduit to the spiritual. Exploring and expanding notions of the sacred and the divine, the presentation includes both new and pre-existing works by artists engaging with embodied and ecstatic forms of expression, ritual, and translation. At a moment when religion is increasingly weaponised as an instrument to divide, ‘Speaking in Tongues’ celebrates the spiritual as a tool for survival, kinship, and communion—centring the work of Indigenous and diasporic artists from the Global South to trace shared connections across geographies, cultures, and time.
Visit Here
May:
The first major monographic exhibition in the UK devoted to Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664) will open at the National Gallery (2 May – 23 August 2026). The exhibition of almost 50 paintings will span the chronological and iconographic breadth of the artist’s career, and unite exceptional works from the collection of the National Gallery with paintings from the Musée du Louvre (‘Saint Bonaventure on His Bier’ and ‘Saint Apollonia’) and the Art Institute of Chicago (‘The Crucifixion’, ‘Saint Romanus of Antioch’ and ‘Saint Barulas’). His paintings, which include stunning life-size depictions of saints, soaring altarpieces and contemplative still lifes, are celebrated for their naturalism, directness and deep emotional power. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/press-and-media/press-releases/zurbaran
‘Don’t Be Afraid. An Exhibition about Death is at The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo from 8 May to 30 August 2026. Death is universal, yet our ways of confronting it are endlessly diverse. ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ brings together urns, death masks and memento mori from the National Museum’s collection alongside contemporary artworks that explore how humans make sense of mortality. Through rituals, remembrance and creative storytelling, spanning time periods and genres, it brings together works by Norwegian and international artists such as Sverre Fehn, Borgny Svalastog, Nan Goldin, Utagawa Hiroshige, Gustav Vigeland and Adolph Tidemand. The exhibition invites visitors to reflect on how death shapes life – and how art helps us face the inevitable. https://www.nasjonalmuseet.no/en/exhibitions-and-events/national-museum/exhibitions/2026/dont-be-afraid.-an-exhibition-about-death
From May to October 2026, the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts will be hosting a major exhibition on the Rule of St Benedict, ‘The Rule: Shaping Lives, Medieval and Modern’, drawing on the collections of Norwich and other cathedrals. The exhibition will examine the impact of rules (religious, social, artistic) on life, drawing parallels between medieval monastic orders and modern life. In association with the exhibition, Norwich Cathedral will show three temporary installations in different parts of the Cathedral Close by artists engaging with Benedictine priorities.
June:
‘Hepworth in Colour’ (12 June – 6 September 2026) at The Courtauld will be the first to explore a less familiar aspect of Barbara Hepworth’s work, the artist’s lifelong fascination with colour, which she used in highly original and unexpected ways. The exhibition will unite, for the first time, her early innovative sculptures with the colour of the 1940s, displayed alongside the most important drawings from that decade. It will include major examples of her work with colour from the 1950s and 1960s. https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/exh-hepworth-in-colour/
July:
As part of Constable 250, ‘Constable: Walking the landscape’ (11 July – 4 October 2026) will bring unprecedented key loans from the National Gallery, Tate, V&A, Royal Academy, and National Galleries of Scotland to Suffolk for the very first time to explore the theme of walking.
September:
‘Amar Kanwar’ at Serpentine North Gallery (September 2026 – January 2027) will unfold as a site-specific installation, bringing together new and existing films to transform Serpentine North into a meditative visual and sonic environment. Kanwar’s works often trace the legacies of decolonisation and the partition of India and Pakistan. While rooted in the specific conditions of the Indian subcontinent, his practice grapples with broader themes of displacement, nationalism, violence, power, censorship, and memory – ultimately revealing what unites us rather than differentiates us regardless of context. https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/amar-kanwar/
October:
‘Pre-Raphaelites: Art and Poetry’ (17 October 2026 – 13 February 2027) at Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery will visually demonstrate the interconnections between fine and decorative art and the written word through innovative arrangements that show the influence of poetry across time, place and material. Structured around literary sources, from the early poetry of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1345-1400) to Romantic poets such as John Keats (1795-1821); the Victorian visions of Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) to the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, Christina Rossetti (1830-1864), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) and William Morris (1834-1896). https://www.getintonewcastle.co.uk/news/laing-art-gallery-announces-2026-programme-pre-raphaelites-national-portrait-gallery-exhibition-and-more
‘Constable to Contemporary’ (24 October 2026 – 28 February 2027) is the final exhibition of the year-long Constable 250 celebration. ‘Constable to Contemporary’ juxtaposes Constable’s ongoing artistic and cultural relevance with contemporary responses to his art, much of which was created during the year.
The Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB) will return for its fifth edition from 29 October 2026 to 28 February 2027 under the theme ‘Angels & Mara’. Set in Bangkok (Krung Thep, the City of Angels), BAB 2026 becomes a stage for artists from Thailand and around the world to reflect on the struggles, contradictions, and resilience of our time. As the world trembles with wars, terrorism, environmental crises, and political divides, humanity is caught within the blurred boundaries of right, wrong and in between. In this fractured reality, opposites coexist — compassion with cruelty, truth with distortion. BAB 2026’s theme, ‘Angels & Mara’, explores the tension between guardians of light and forces of temptation. Angels, from the Greek angelos meaning divine messengers, appear across different cultures and religions and embody hope and protection, while Mara in Buddhist cosmology represents death, desire, and the darker sides of human nature. https://www.bkkartbiennale.com/