Join Govinda Sah ‘Azad’ in discussion with Dr. Katie Hill, Academic Lead, Asia and Senior Lecturer at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, on the occasion of his solo exhibition, Journey to the Heart of Light at October Gallery.

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.

The conversation will examine Sah’s creative process and unpack the influence of the different environments that the artist has lived in upon his artistic progress.

The talk takes place on the gallery’s ground floor and has disabled access

We are delighted to share that the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art has acquired Akua’s Surviving Children (1996) by El Anatsui. The work is now featured in the museum’s newly unveiled exhibition of over 130 pieces.

During a visit to Denmark in 1996, Anatsui discovered driftwood washed ashore in Hellebæk. The weathered logs immediately evoked, for him, the people torn from West Africa by the Danish slave trade — “torn from their land source into wild, hostile sea, tossed about, eventually returning to land with experiences of their ordeal.” Over the following days, he gathered more than thirty logs, creating a powerful memorial to a clan of survivors.

Nearly three decades later, the installation returns to Denmark’s coastline—now in the care of Louisiana Museum—where its origin and meaning resonate even more deeply.

Join artists Eleanor Lakelin and Junko Mori in conversation with curator Eleri Fanshawe for a special gallery talk accompanying the exhibition Lineages.

Working across wood and metal respectively, Lakelin and Mori share a deep attentiveness to natural forms, processes and cycles of growth. This conversation will explore their distinctive material practices, tracing how each artist responds to the inherent qualities of their chosen mediums through making, repetition and transformation.

In both practices, the artists’ use of line emerges as a connective thread between material and gesture as a method of ‘way finding’ that interlinks nature with contemporary sculptural form. The talk offers insight into the artists’ influences and shared sensibilities, inviting audiences to consider how an expanded notion of line operates as both concept and form within their work.

The talk takes place on the gallery’s ground floor and has disabled access

Next spring, Yorkshire Sculpture Park will present Rise, the first solo museum exhibition by LR Vandy. Through her distinctive use of rope and found materials, Vandy transforms everyday objects into powerful reflections on migration, resilience and global interconnectedness.

Much of the rope featured in the exhibition draws on her proximity to the Historic Dockyard in Chatham—home to the UK’s last working Ropery, where rope has been produced using the same techniques for over four centuries.

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.

View photographs and watch the Cocktail Preview Opening Speeches, whilst immersed in a explorable, high resolution recording of the exhibition
El Anatsui: 'Go Back and Pick'