Lisson Gallery Announces Sarah Cunningham's First UK Institutional Solo Exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary
The Facts
Nottingham Contemporary will present the first UK institutional solo exhibition of the late British artist Sarah Cunningham (1993–2024) from 9 October 2026 to 10 January 2027. Titled "Midnight Sun," the exhibition brings together earlier works and never-before-seen paintings from her studio, including The World It Softly Lulls (2021), Via Lucis (2023), and Starshine and Clay (2022). Cunningham, who was born in Nottingham and worked as a gallery assistant at the institution in 2019, died in 2024. Her influences include science-fiction writers Ursula K. Le Guin and J.G. Ballard, as well as artists Ithell Colquhoun, Tacita Dean, and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané. The exhibition marks a homecoming for the artist, whose practice explored imaginary wildernesses and fluid forest-scapes as portals to other worlds.
The Signal
This posthumous exhibition solidifies Cunningham’s standing within a younger generation of British painters whose work engages with ecology, speculative fiction, and immersive abstraction. For collectors, the show—her largest to date—may reinforce the market trajectory signaled by previous solo presentations at Lisson Gallery (Los Angeles and London) and Almine Rech (New York). The exhibition’s framing of Cunningham’s nocturnal, world-building approach offers a model for how institutions can honor an artist’s legacy while introducing her practice to a broader audience.
- Artists: Sarah Cunningham
- People: Ursula K. Le Guin, J. G. Ballard, Ithell Colquhoun, Tacita Dean, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané
- Galleries: Lisson Gallery, Almine Rech
- Museums: Nottingham Contemporary
- Locations: Nottingham, Los Angeles, London, New York
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