<h2>EL ANATSUI: 'Go Back and Pick'</h2> 9 October – 29 November, 2025.<h2>EL ANATSUI: 'Go Back and Pick'</h2> 9 October – 29 November, 2025.<h2>EL ANATSUI: 'Go Back and Pick'</h2> 9 October – 29 November, 2025.<h2>EL ANATSUI: 'Go Back and Pick'</h2> 9 October – 29 November, 2025.<h2>EL ANATSUI: 'Go Back and Pick' CATALOGUE<br>Now available in our online store</h2> 16 pages - £8.50 (+P&P)<h2>DREAM NO SMALL DREAM: The Story of October Gallery<br>Available from our Book Store. £40 + P&P</h2>304 pages, full colour plates throughout. Edited by Gerard Houghton.
 

CURRENT EXHIBITION

EL ANATSUI: 'Go Back and Pick'

9 October – 29 November, 2025.
El Anatsui, Passage of Time, 2023.
Tropical hardwood and tempera, 244 x 244 cm.
Photos: Jonathan Greet
El Anatsui, Moon Fragments, 2024.
Tropical hardwood and tempera, 148 x 335 cm.
October Gallery and Goodman Gallery London are proud to present ‘Go Back and Pick’, an exhibition in two parts by El Anatsui, widely regarded as one of the most influential contemporary artists working today. Anatsui’s new wooden sculptures mark a significant moment in his artistic trajectory, evolving from his foundational use of the medium during the 1980s and 1990s. These twin exhibitions of Anatsui’s most recent work underscore his major presence in the much-anticipated Nigerian Modernism exhibition at Tate Modern, opening 8th October, 2025.

El Anatsui’s internationally renowned sculptural practice continues to challenge the way we look at sculpture today. In the London exhibitions, his focus is on wood, his original and primary material. ‘Go Back and Pick’ presents a new series of wall-mounted sculptures, which evolve from the planar wooden reliefs that characterised his art in the 1980s and 1990s.

From the outset, Anatsui has always insisted on what he calls “the non-fixed form”, the broad range of freedoms to be discovered in his sculpture. The modular nature and flexibility of the panel pieces allow for a range of spatially adaptive reconfigurations to the hanging sequence. Rather than having a fixed and final form, each panel piece can be rearranged at will to offer alternative combinations. As renowned scholars Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu note, “the form-shape and surface-colour compositions are potentially free to be manipulated […] uninhibited by whatever might have been the artist’s original composition.”

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FORTHCOMING EXHIBITION

GOVINDA SAH 'AZAD': Journey to the Heart of Light

4 December, 2025 – 24 January, 2026
Govinda Sah 'Azad', Incandescence, 2025.
Tropical hardwood and tempera, Acrylic on canvas, 180 x 140 cm.
Govinda Sah 'Azad', Mountain to Margate, 2025.
Tropical hardwood and tempera, Acrylic on canvas, 180 x 160 cm.
October Gallery presents its fifth solo exhibition of compelling works by Govinda Sah ‘Azad’, a Nepalese artist now working in Margate. This exhibition highlights Sah’s latest large-scale oil and acrylic paintings on canvas and presents selected smaller scale works. Journey to the Heart of Light weaves together the artist’s personal journeys through both inner and outer realms. Beginning his artistic career in the Himalayan mountains close to where he was born, Sah first moved to London to study at Wimbledon College of Arts, before moving from London to Margate, where he recently opened a purpose-built studio. Although seemingly unconnected, the landlocked peaks of the high Himalaya and the tumultuous seascapes of Margate are connected in Sah’s imagination by the atmospheric clouds that envelop them, which upon parting reveal dynamic vistas illuminated by shafts of light below. Sah’s intensely detailed work is filled with an inner light, one that he first admired in the expressive radiance he found in J. M. W. Turner’s oil paintings, particularly around the coasts of Margate. Sah’s paintings, although different both in design and execution, afford tantalising reflections of the light that guided him to follow in the English Master’s footsteps as he, too, travelled from spectacular mountain views to draw inspiration from Margate’s dramatic seascapes.

Fascinated by the changing qualities of light playing through various layers of cloud, Sah represents his shifting experiences of the outer environment to explore more subtle emotional changes occurring within his ‘inner landscape.’ The artist’s works are composed of densely interwoven layers of mark-making that build layer upon layer of oil and acrylic paints upon the canvas. For Sah, as the painted surface becomes saturated with detailed layers, the reiterative act of painting resolves into a meditation on the complex enigmas of life itself. Sah states, ‘Painting becomes this continual process of losing myself...During these dialogues (with the painting), ideas arise within me, surfacing through the mysterious process of painting. Knowledge exists outside all of us and, for me, painting is the activity by which I reach out to discover it.’

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NEWS, EVENTS & RECOMMENDATIONS


El Anatsui: 'Go Back and Pick'
New catalogue now available
£8.50 (+Packing & Postage)
Order The new catalogue to accompany the exhibition El Anatsui: 'Go back and Pick'. Includes an essay by Gus Casley-Hayford. 16 page softcover.
Buy Now
El Anatsui at Nigerian Modernism
Tate Modern
8th October, 2025 – 10th May, 2026
Tate Modern presents Nigerian Modernism, a landmark exhibition celebrating the artists who transformed modern art in Nigeria during the mid-20th century. The exhibition will include some of El Anatsui’s early wooden wall-hanging sculptures, such as Leopard's Paw Prints and Other Stories.

Created throughout the 1980s and 90s, these remarkable relief works reveal the beginnings of Anatsui’s signature style. Using richly hued tropical hardwoods—variously charred, carved and painted—the artist forged wall-hangings that occupy a space between painting and sculpture, anticipating the shimmering metal tapestries for which he later became renowned.
El Anatsui, Leopard's Paw Prints and Other Stories, 1991. Tropical hardwoods, 43.5 (H) x 93 (W) x 17 (D) cm.
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VISTING OCTOBER GALLERY

Bloomsbury, London

October Gallery has been instrumental in bringing to worldwide attention many of the world’s leading international artists, including El Anatsui, Rachid Koraïchi, Romuald Hazoumè, Nnenna Okore, Laila Shawa and Kenji Yoshida. The Gallery promotes the Transvangarde, the very best in contemporary art from around the planet, as well as maintaining a cultural hub in central London for poets, writers, intellectuals and artists, and hosts talks, performances and seminars, see www.octobergallery.co.uk/events

The rich diversity of art presented is an inspiration to collectors and enthusiasts. Institutions such as the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany; Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; Setagagya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan have all collected works from October Gallery.

Founded in 1979, October Gallery is a charitable trust which is supported by sales of art, rental of the Gallery's unique facilities, grants from various funding bodies and the active support of dedicated artists, musicians, writers and many friends from around the world. The Gallery’s Education Department is inclusive of all ages from under 5’s to PGCE student and delivers a wide range of provision, see www.octobergalleryeducation.com

October Gallery is open from 12:30 to 17:30 pm, Tuesday to Saturday.
The Gallery is closed during official holidays and the entire month of August.

October Gallery Cafe is open from 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm, Tuesday to Friday.

 

ACCESSIBILITY

There are two steps at the main entrance, each has a rise of 160mm and a 310mm tread (no handrail). The main entrance push door is 750mm wide.
Assisted or ramp access at the Gallery’s main entrance is available upon request.

Chairs can be found in the Gallery space.
The refectory is fully accessible by wheelchair.
Access to the courtyard has a 100mm ramp down coming from the corridor door.
There is also an accessible toilet in the Courtyard.

October Gallery is a Grade II listed building and therefore has no lift access to rooms above the ground floor. This includes the Theatre, the Clubroom and the first floor.

We welcome all visitors and will do our best to accommodate specific needs. Please do let us know in advance if there is anything in particular, we can help with. Call + 44 (0)20 7242 7367 or email gallery@octobergallery.co.uk preferably a day in advance.



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