Cecily Brown: Picture Making

Serpentine presents Picture Making, a major solo exhibition by British artist Cecily Brown, on view at Serpentine South, Kensington Gardens, London from 27 March to 6 September 2026. The exhibition marks Brown’s first major solo presentation of paintings in a UK institution in over twenty years. We sent Thom Oosterhof to find out more.

There is something profound about the notion of unfinished business, or a story coming full circle. Like the feeling of picking up a sentence you started years ago and finally finding the words to finish it. That is what came to mind when contemplating Cecily Brown’s new exhibition Picture Making at Serpentine South Gallery Picture Making is, on the surface, a painting show. Compositionally alive in a way that only work made by someone who has genuinely wrestled with a canvas can be.

But for me, it functions as something a little more. Brown left England, spent thirty years living and working in New York and built one of the most distinctive painterly voices of her generation. That voice now sings loud and proud within Kensington Gardens, the very landscape that helped shape it in the first place. How’s that for coming full circle.

Cecily Brown, The Serpentine Picture, 2024, Oil on linen, 119.38 x 185.42 cm (47 x 73 in.) © Cecily Brown, 2026. Photo: Genevieve Hanson

Cecily Brown, Nature Walk with Paranoia, 2024, Oil on linen, 226.06 x 210.82 cm (89 x 83 in.) © Cecily Brown, 2026. Photo: Genevieve Hanson

Cecily Brown Untitled (Boating), 2021-2025, Oil on linen 78.74 x 73.66 cm (31 x 29 in.) © Cecily Brown, 2026. Photo: Genevieve Hanson

Cecily Brown Study for Sarn Mere 3, 2008, Oil on linen 215.9 x 226.06 cm (85 x 89 in.) Private Collection, Switzerland © Cecily Brown, 2026. Photo: Courtesy Gagosian

Cecily Brown A Round Robin, 2023–2024, Oil on linen 226.06 x 261.62 cm (89 x 103 in.) © Cecily Brown, 2026. Photo: Genevieve Hanson

Cecily Brown Couple, 2003–2004, Oil on linen 228.6 x 203.2 cm (90 x 80 in.) FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France – The Levett Collection © Cecily Brown, 2026. Photo: Courtesy Gagosian

Cecily Brown Players and painted stage, 2024, Oil on linen 33.02 x 43.18 cm (13 x 17 in.) © Cecily Brown, 2026. Photo: Genevieve Hanson

 

 

What I love about her work is the way the surface refuses to settle. Almost as if it is constantly vibrating, which scientifically speaking, it is. Loaded with stories and fables from her past. You get the sense of the children’s book illustrations that Brown grew up with somewhere underneath the paint. That sense of the sinister forest and all of the trappings sewn throughout. Brown has channelled this, translated it, and presents it here in a collection of work that spans the early 2000’s, alongside works made specifically for this space, plus recent monotypes and drawings. Though easier said than done, Brown skates the boundaries of representation and instills it with a potency is at times unapologetic yet undoubtedly sentimental.

The exhibition represents her first major solo presentation of paintings in a UK institution in over twenty years. A treat to witness and an important, and fitting, milestone in this artistic juggernaut’s career. As a beacon of inspiration for many young British painters, I don’t doubt that the exhibition will be celebrated in the way in which it is deserved. Not only by an adoring art public but by those happenstance passersby’s that are about to embark on a wicked painterly journey.

Last Updated on June 3, 2026