{"id":366774,"date":"2025-12-23T13:47:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T13:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366774\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:47:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T13:47:14","slug":"late-uk-artist-sarah-cunningham-honoured-with-nottingham-contemporary-show-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/366774\/","title":{"rendered":"Late UK artist Sarah Cunningham honoured with Nottingham Contemporary show &#8211; The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">The UK gallery Nottingham Contemporary has announced plans for the\u00a0first institutional solo exhibition of the British artist Sarah Cunningham\u00a0who died last year. The show, the largest presentation of her work to date, is due to open next autumn (dates to be confirmed).<\/p>\n<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">\u201cThis is a\u00a0particularly significant and moving moment because it marks a deeply meaningful homecoming: the return of the artist\u2019s work to the\u00a0city where she was born and raised,\u201d says Lisson Gallery which announced representation of the artist in July 2023. Cunningham worked at Nottingham Contemporary as a gallery assistant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">Cunningham died in November 2024 aged 31; she was hit by a northbound Northern line train after stepping on to the track and walking down a tunnel at Chalk Farm station in north London. According to <a class=\"transition-colors duration-default shadow-externalLink hover:text-red-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cj3xxrlxxzgo#:~:text=Sarah%20Cunningham%2C%2031%2C%20died%20accidentally%20after%20being,accidental%20and%20that%20she%20was%20not%20suicidal.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the BBC<\/a> a coroner ruled that her death was accidental.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">She graduated with a Masters from the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 2022 and held her first solo exhibition,\u00a0The Crystal Forest, at Lisson Gallery in London in 2023. <\/p>\n<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">Originally from the Wollaton area of Nottingham, a city in the centre of England, Cunningham created a significant body of work after leaving the RCA. Her practice developed from her fascination with the natural world, both the urban jungle and especially the jungles of Central America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">Her <a class=\"transition-all duration-default shadow-internalLink hover:text-red-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theartnewspaper.com\/2024\/11\/04\/sarah-cunningham-missing-artist-london-police\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">distinctive, abstract style<\/a>, with fleeting figurative imagery, was recognisable by exaggerated brushwork often made with an extended brush fashioned from scraps of wood by Cunningham. She frequently painted through the night, a habit formed when she held down jobs at two galleries\u2014including the Nottingham Contemporary stint\u2014as well as a delivery driver, often working a late or early-hours shift.<\/p>\n<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">She eschewed the use of preparatory sketches \u201cor any sense of a formal roadmap\u201d and told the interviewer Lee Gordon that she often started a painting \u201cby working on the floor with rags and brushes\u201d. She added: \u201cI treat the surface of the painting as a palette, the paint is pushed and pulled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"pt-dp-p font-text-light font-light text-lg leading-normal tracking-wide mb-base last:mb-0\" itemprop=\"text\">Cunningham also exhibited in Aspen, Berlin, Los Angeles and Canada and had a longstanding relationship with the Bomb Factory Art Foundation in London.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"644\" height=\"492.99310344827586\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent;height:auto;width:100%;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 644 492.99310344827586'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/jpeg;base64,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'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3a56c3ab0982ed919ea3ba282efa91f7e59e052a-1160x888.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Sarah Cunningham<\/p>\n<p>courtesy: Lisson Gallery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK gallery Nottingham Contemporary has announced plans for the\u00a0first institutional solo exhibition of the British artist Sarah&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134,15941,198989,31481,198988],"class_list":{"0":"post-366774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-exhibitions","16":"tag-nottingham-contemporary","17":"tag-obituaries","18":"tag-sarah-cunningham"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}