Art exhibitions at Wolfson College
Wolfson has an established programme of exhibitions and artistic events which take place throughout the year and are framed by its modernist architecture, beautiful landscaped gardens and embedded into academic life.
Showcasing the work of both renowned international artists and innovative emerging artists, with the aim of stimulating reflection, discussion and debate, the art on show is enjoyed by both the academic and wider community. Our exhibitions are open to the general public and are visited by scholars, guests and visitors from around the world.
Viewing the exhibitions
Exhibitions are open to the public every Saturday and Sunday from 10.00 - 17.00.
Please note that exhibitions are occasionally unavailable, for instance during graduations.
It is advisable to contact the Porters' Lodge in advance of your visit (01223 335900).
Current Exhibition: 'Epic Journeys'
22 March - 17 May 2026
This exhibition offers the first retrospective of Hassan Aliyu’s astonishing 40-year career. An artist of remarkable breadth and depth, his work reflects a multi-cultural British-Nigerian heritage and life experiences which straddle two continents and encompass many remarkable journeys.
From early works of the 80’s and 90’s created in Lagos to artworks completed in the UK in 2026, the current exhibition includes seminal paintings, iconic collages and never-before-exhibited drawings and works on paper which provide unparalleled insight into Aliyu’s thought process and creative practice. The diversity of his skills are on full display – as master draftsman, painter as well as abstract and conceptual artist.
The title of the exhibition reflects not only the epic scale of many of the artworks – but Aliyu’s far-reaching world-view and perspective on history. The rhythmic, poetic, and almost musical qualities of Aliyu’s art evoke an epic story – re-imagined through visual form, so relevant and timely in our contemporary culture. As many parts of the world explode in conflict, Aliyu’s epic canvases ignite with fiery colours. The multi-dimensional surfaces constructed of disparate elements demand to be explored in detail, and give the paradoxical impression of being at the same time fragmented and part of a greater whole.
Epic also refers to the timeless traditional of oral storytelling, prevalent in the African continent as in many parts of the world, and proposes the role of the artist as narrator, educator and story-teller – evoking parables and heroic adventures of the past, present and future.
Journeys, in the plural, implies not only a single direction of travel with a beginning and an end, but a restless, perilous criss-crossing over space and time. Journeys compelled by political, social and economic forces, characterised by resilience in the face of extreme uncertainty. Such journeys, have been made by many – including by the Nigerian diaspora – and are universal to all peoples forced by migration and displacement to traverse vast distances and unknown territories.
A master colourist, Aliyu’s hues blend and fade imperceptibly into each other or unexpectedly explode from the surface. His skills as a classically trained painter enable the delicate and nuanced transitions associated with fine art, and lend elegance and grace, for example, to his portraits and portrayals of the feminine form. Aliyu’s use of thick impasto paint applied with a pallet knife in his earlier paintings of sports in motion from runners, cyclists and boxers, reveal a sculptural quality.
Layers of found and recycled materials including shredded bank statements and explicit branding of western consumer goods, transcends the use of traditional media. Highly textured surfaces catch light in unexpected ways and increase the feeling of movement, constantly challenging boundaries of media and method, form and function.
Aliyu’s works are remarkable for their perpetual motion – a signature element of his art. In spite of their stillness, nothing stays still. At first glance the works present an almost incomprehensible explosion of colour and structure. They are overwhelming and mesmerising. The viewer is led across a seemingly endless canvas of elements, searching for meaning. Yet, no line, surface or element is without purpose. There is meaning in every chain link, every anchor, every falling human body – whether it’s referencing the horrors of the slave trade or the servitude of economic indenture.
Aliyu’s art offers a deep engagement with the historical complexities of the African content. From legacies of slavery and colonial rule, to the fraught struggle for independence and emergence of the Nigerian nation, to subsequent interventions and neo-colonial policies which impacted the region’s economic and socio-cultural development, Aliyu questions and critiques the past and the present in brave, uncompromising ways. The collection of artworks in this exhibition, including works on loan to Wolfson College, alongside more recent pieces exhibited at ArtSpace 5-7 Portugal Place, offers a visual expression of the history of Nigeria and Africa. Standing in front of Hassan Aliyu’s epic artworks – you can literally feel the maelstrom unfold. The viewer is confronted with a visual story, which includes an overarching narrative, yet remains firmly rooted in individual, human experiences, full of subtleties and nuances, contradictions and complexities of life – a paradox for our life and times.
Recent Exhibitions
2025-26
- Life and Experience - Janette Parris
19 October 2025 to 22 February 2026
Janette Parris investigates life in her area of contemporary London, using narrative and humour and employing popular formats such as soap opera, stand-up comedy, musical theatre, pop music, cartoons, comics and animation. Her art has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally for more than 25 years. Examples of two series of art-works are shown here. The seven 'Bite yer Tongue' works from 1997 were shown at Tate Modern in its first major exhibition, ‘Century City’, in 2001. They are small, deceptively simple works of Text Art, like diary pages, hand-drawn narratives of the everyday, expressing in a few words some of her thoughts on subjects such as race, sex or class. Her storytelling is whimsical and particular, but also generalised in the sense that there are analogies in almost everyone’s quotidian experience. In the face of rudeness or misfortune her stoic politeness comically masks a repressed annoyance, with solace later found in ‘comfort food’ such as ice-cream, chocolate, sweets, or biscuits.
Seven large recent works, 'This is not a memoir', shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2023, combine upper-case text with a digitally-drawn image of the subject, like her comics. Again the texts apparently tell us about her life-experiences, but this time they are tied to specific places and/or dates: at the cinema; her father’s life as a worker at Ford Dagenham; working night-shifts to fund her MA at Goldsmiths; the expense of ‘white goods’ in the 1980s; the first colour televisions; dancing and getting older; West Ham’s new stadium. Her reminiscences are characteristically clear-eyed, thoughtful and moving.
2024-25
- Wolfson at 60
4 May to 12 October 2025
For over a decade, Wolfson has developed a robust programme of exhibitions and arts events. Showcasing the work of both renowned international artists and innovative artists at the beginning of their careers, the exhibitions are designed to stimulate reflection, discussion, and debate, and are enjoyed by the entire College community. The rolling calendar of exhibitions means that art is on view throughout the year, set within the intellectual landscape of Wolfson, and framed by the modernist architecture and landscaped gardens that define the physical site – a place that embodies home for many of its members.
Celebrating Wolfson’s 60th anniversary year, this exhibition highlights the range of artistic disciplines and styles that have made up our exhibitions over the years. Film, textiles, photography, sculpture, paintings: art in an astonishing variety of media has graced the walls of the College’s Combination Room since it became an exhibition space. The work of Wolfson alumni – including Richard Joseph (Joseph Joseph) and Tszwai So (Spheron Architects) – has been welcomed alongside that of Royal Academicians and amateur artists who have responded to open calls.
Thanks to the generous donations of artists and collectors, and the ongoing work of College members to shape an accessible and engaging artistic programme, this exhibition celebrates the diversity of its contributors, the College, and its members, and tells the visual story of Wolfson’s artistic journey.
- Feel the Rhythm - Fungai Benhura
26 January to 27 April 2025
Fungai Benhura is a visual artist whose work is made up of multiple layers of different materials. Each layer is very important as it represents history that's being buried and rediscovered. Benhura’s work questions the notion of being at a stage of creation or destruction.
Picture any building being constructed and completed only to be destroyed to reveal the various materials that have been used in the process of it being erected. The end product unveils a painting that has a character and personality of its own. The artworks are created through a hands-on process involving accumulation, painting and removal. They effortlessly shift between abstraction and figuration while prioritising the ornate, textured, and detailed.
This process of constructing and deconstructing means that the painting is being reconstructed into something else, more like in archaeological restoration.
The choice of materials tends to be indiscriminate thereby making the experience of the build-up to the painting process an exciting one. Benhura usually gathers whatever materials are available including cut outs of posters, paper, tissue paper, Indian ink, oil pastels, metal panels, beer cans, coffee sacks or anything else to utilise. The paintings have a playful quality and don’t quite reveal everything that’s in them. Benhura hopes that this deliberate ploy gives an enduring viewing experience as seemingly new things appear.
These paintings have a powerful ability to associate; they suggest palimpsests, changing architecture, archaeological restoration, and the reconstruction of histories. Benhura’s artworks arrive through repeatedly being buried and rediscovered, destroyed and recreated, and it is through this approach the painting practice develops its own distinct character.
- On Being One - Sophy Rickett
20 October 2024 – 19 January 2025
Sophy Rickett is a visual artist working with photography, video installation and text. Much of her work has explored the tension between the narrative tendencies and abstract possibilities of the photographic image. Her works have a minimalist quality and create spatial plays and ambiguities that draw attention to the material nature of the photograph, rather than to the receding illusory space behind the picture plane.
'On Being One', curated by Phillip Lindley, brings together works from different series produced over the last 15 years, creating a new constellation of images and text to explore some of her ongoing interests in the new context of Wolfson College’s Combination Room.
From 'Objects in the Field' (2012) and 'The Death of a Beautiful Subject' (2016) to more recent work such as 'There it is, the Soil' (2022), her research process, which combines references to her subjective experience with primary research into specific contexts or environments that relate to archives, the heritage industry or the family archive, emerges as central to the development of her practice.
With landscape and the natural world as a backdrop, photography is evoked as a tool for seeing, processing, navigating and representing the world and its relations.
2023-24
- Life Within Landscapes: Caribbean - Cambridge , Now
9 June – 13 October 2024
This exhibition is a celebration of the Caribbean landscape and the people that inhabit it - the distinctive flora and fauna, unique colours and light, diverse forms of visual expression and tapestry of cultures. The exhibition presents a selection of remarkable artworks by three female contemporary artists, Sandra Scott, Nadia Koo and Selena Scott. They have made their home in Cambridge while continuing to be informed and inspired by their Caribbean heritage. Their work is presented through the lens of their lived experiences, life-long travels and multi-cultural backgrounds as well as personal histories and memories.
This history and culture of the Caribbean are inextricably linked to landscape. Both in terms of ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ geographies, scholars of the Caribbean refer not only to the physical and geographic qualities of this varied region but also the socio-economic, political and historical trajectories which contribute to its complex, diverse, often disputed but visibly distinct social and cultural landscape - at the heart of which is the relationship between people and nature.
This exhibition presents a range of media and artforms ranging from film, textile-arts, doll-making as well as painting and printmaking, reflecting the rich tapestry of artistic expression found across the region and in the contemporary arts. The three contemporary artists in this exhibition offer a remarkable insight into the Caribbean, its influence on global imaginations and impact on cultures around the world. Reflecting their own reality they explore and blend the knowledge of Caribbean and of Cambridge. Like much great art, they explore, inspire and reveal. You are invited to see what you will, but the more you look the more you see. They demonstrate that, in a world obsessed with classifications, it is possible to break down boundaries, preconceptions and prejudices, starting with Western notions of genre and media but more fundamentally affecting our expectations, appreciation and understanding of art.
This exhibition is curated by Dr. Anna M Dempster, Fellow, Wolfson College.
With special thanks to the Dr Kenny Monrose of Wolfson's Race, Ethnicity, and Cultural Heritage (REACH) Research Hub and Professor Steve Evans, Conservation and Sustainability (S&C) Research Hub.
- Ceramics in The Bernard Leach Tradition: A Selection from the Bradshaw-Bubier Collection
28 April - 19 May 2024
The Leach Pottery at St Ives in Cornwall, founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach (1887-1979) and Shoji Hamada (1894-1978), played a crucial role in the development of the Studio Pottery movement in Britain. All but one of the potters whose work is represented in this two-case display worked at the Leach Pottery for a time, or with Leach’s first pupil, Michael Cardew, at either Winchcombe in Somerset, or Wenford Bridge in Gloucestershire. Their work embodies Leach’s vision of pots that are handmade, functional, and aesthetically satisfying, while illustrating their individual interpretations of Oriental and English ceramic traditions.
One case displays stoneware by David Leach, his son, John Leach, William Marshall, Ray Finch, and Joe Finch, who was apprenticed to his father and did not work at St Ives. The other has porcelain by Derek Emms and Amanda Brier, and stoneware by Trevor Corser, Nic Harrison, Alan Brough, Joanna Wason, and an American, Jeff Oestreich.
- After News Before Bed - Enej Gala
28 January - 21 April 2024
The exhibition takes its name from an ongoing series of oil paintings ‘‘After news before bed’’ started in 2022 and includes sculptures from the series ‘‘Repaired objects’ started in 2017. The title originates from a time slot which in certain countries was designed for short cartoons or other childrens’ programs. Oddly enough, after the evening news where parents would gather rather distressed information about politics and different state affairs, children would get their turn to watch some short entertainment before going to sleep. It is not clear if the aim is for children to be ‘‘encouraged’’ to watch the news waiting for their cartoons, or if parents are meant to get some gratifying relaxation with their children after all the more ‘‘serious affairs’’. An interesting space opens up to be explored through imagery in between the two extremes, where serious business can get cartoonishly distorted, and cartoons just after the abundance of facts can produce some serious implications.
The series of Repaired objects explores the functionality of everyday objects through a slow metamorphosis of their anatomy, taking the repair beyond itself as a dubious process that never returns pristine conditions to submitted objects. This series takes us away from usual assumptions, expanding possibilities of an individual evolution within each object, exploiting its symbolical and physical properties through a naive sci-fi scenario where the outcome is always unsure.
Paintings are restricted to the approximate measures of the TV set from the artist’s childhood. Their taking space in a university charged with serious knowledge developing programs makes a peculiar match that could open up a fun dispute about the seriousness of knowledge itself. The dialogue between two series and the space can present an intertwining mix of realities between facts and fictions, knowledge and ignorance, seriousness and triviality through thought and matter that keep questioning one another until exhausted after all the news and entertainment we can finally go to bed.
Enej Gala lives and works between London, Venice and Nova Gorica. In 2014 he was in an exchange at the William De Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. In 2013 he accomplishes his B.A. and in 2015 his M.A. in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Graduated from Royal Academy Schools Postgraduate Programme in London 2019-2023. Last solo shows: The invention of footsteps at Almanac, Turin (IT) 2023, Saving chewing gums from mammoth’s hair at TJ Boulting, London (UK) 2023 and Nevereverevereverevereverever learn at Aplusa gallery, Venice (IT) 2022. Winner of Xenia residency award, Bow Arts Alcamantar RAW studio award, Wolfson College Cambridge RAS Graduate Prize andGilbert Bayes Scholarship Award – for sculpture 2023.
His practice is based on an acute awareness of thinking through making as an attempt to grasp the experience of otherness. As a device that reveals its tricks while counter-intuitively enhancing their magic, puppetry is used as a lense to focus on materials as entities, expanding their potential by exposing and building on their intrinsic qualities. This process questions traditional perspectives on art, craftsmanship, installation, performance and different forms of production also through frequent collaborations and free improvisation. Stretching the limits of imagination by feeding on flaws of perception, his works ruminate metaphors, like an anomaly manifested through constant frustration over what is proposed to us in any form of convention. Gently probing fragile belongings to particular identities and persistently subverting conflictual rethorics, cryptic interweaves with mundane forming genuine dialogues through site responsive installations as welcoming traps for viewers to stumble upon.
- How It Is - Tim Head
15 October 2023 - 21 January 2024
Tim Head won the John Moores Painting Prize in 1987 and is an artist of major significance who has exhibited internationally for several decades. Themes of fundamental importance can be traced throughout his long and consistently innovative career: a conflicted fascination with consumerism; a rage against exploitative big business and the armaments industries; his environmental and political activism; his revulsion against factory farming and his hostility to genetic modification. All these concerns seem remarkably prescient of concerns which are widespread today. So, too, is his dread of a nuclear Armageddon.
The formal qualities of Head’s art are similarly radical and often seem to reveal a psychic alienation, deliberately unsettling or disorientating the spectator. Repulsion and attraction are enmeshed in complex ways, as can be seen in the ambivalence of his interest in signage, logos and packaging, which he often endows with sinister overtones, but also, sometimes, with an extraordinary grandeur and an undefinable spirituality. Head experiments incessantly and obsessively. He forensically scrutinises the everyday, then dissects, abstracts and re-presents it, so that its elements appear equivocally beautiful and disturbingly unfamiliar.
Curated by Professor Phillip Lindley.
- Frangenberg Collection Artists’ Edition
15 October 2023 - 21 January 2024
In 2018, Andreas and Rita Frangenberg donated to Wolfson the bulk of the art collection accumulated by the late Dr Thomas Frangenberg. This brought to the College a fine collection of conceptual art which Thomas had acquired over nearly four decades. The bulk of the collection is by London-based artists: Thomas lived in London from 1981, when he came to England to write his PhD, and was well known to artists and art-dealers alike. When he first arrived, he purchased extensively from artists such as Tim Head, Amikam Toren, Keith Milow and others. Later, he frequented artists’ studios and graduation shows at some of London’s major art colleges, aiming to buy works as inexpensively as possible, before artists had gallery representation. He became exceptionally astute at judging who would be the stars of the future and it is one reason why so many Turner Prize winners and nominees are included in the collection.
In 2020, I exhibited a first selection from the collection in the Combination Room and published an account of Thomas as a collector: Angle of Vision [a display copy is nearby]. Now, at the suggestion of one of the artists, Stuart Taylor, I shall publish a new version of the book, in an edition of 50, with a selection of nine art-works, each also in a limited edition of 50, by artists whose work Thomas collected. Eight of the works are shown here and the ninth, by Janette Parris, will be added when she has signed the copies in late November. Tim Head’s Dark Planet is directly related to his work of the same name currently on show in the Combination Room.
Artists represented: Keith Milow, Tim Head, Amikam Toren, Hannah Lister, Alicja Dubrocka, Simon Patterson, Nicky Hirst and Janette Parris.
Professor Phillip Lindley
