The artists at Walker Art Gallery offer densely material works that interweave practices which explore personal and colonial legacies, within an ornate building and national collection founded on the merchant wealth of the city.

9 artists in this exhibition

Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic present a new work as part of their ‘Electronic Dub Station’ series, recently presented at the 60th Venice Biennale. Titled ‘Concrete Roots’, the site-specific installation examines themes of resilience, migration, ecological consciousness and textile traditions through the duo’s renowned use of indigo textiles and dub music soundscapes.

Leasho Johnson presents a series of densely pigmented large-scale paintings in which he creates abstract characters that reference his own lived experience to disrupt historical, political, stereotypical and biological expectations of the Black queer body.

Through sculpture, photo-collage, drawing, and textiles, Nour Bishouty investigates the impulses of tourism and sightseeing, foregrounding questions around permission and the production of fantasy. Bishouty’s multimedia installation, which was developed as a way to read a painting of a fictional landscape by the artist’s father, sits in conversation with works in the Walker Art Gallery collection, anchoring it in historical and cultural memory.

Jennifer Tee exhibits collages from her ongoing ‘Tampan Tulips’ series which draw inspiration from the colourful, geometric aesthetics of the traditional tampan textiles. Created using dried tulip petals, these works highlight the delicate and fleeting nature of life.

Further highlights include cast resin works of Dream Stones by Karen Tam 譚嘉文; a new, large-scale textile and embroidery work by Katarzyna Perlak; wall-based works by Cevdet Erek inspired by football stadia layouts; paintings and tapestries of fictional landscapes by Isabel Nolan; and a mosaic work by Petros Moris presented in the Sculpture Gallery.