Drawing attention: emerging artists in dialogue

Special Exhibition
27 October 2023 – 28 January 2024
Tickets £7 per person
Book tickets here

Discover some of the most compelling up-and-coming names in the field of contemporary drawing, displayed alongside works by celebrated artists within the British Museum collection of prints and drawings.

These new acquisitions include works by some of the youngest living artists ever collected by the British Museum, presented alongside works by celebrated artists from Mary Delany and Édouard Manet, to Barbara Hepworth, Andy Warhol and Yinka Shonibare. 

In this surprising and thought-provoking selection, emerging artists take the medium of drawing in new directions and use innovative approaches. A wide range of techniques and practices are represented, including drawings using make-up on face wipes by Sin Wai Kin and a drawing made with chalk collected from the White Cliffs of Dover by Josephine Baker. 

Artists show how drawing, often considered a quiet or private medium, can be used to challenge social norms, explore identity and protest injustice. Catherine Anyango Grünewald has described the time and labour invested in her monumental drawings as a ‘direct homage’ to their subjects, often the victims of institutional crimes. The painstaking detail of Irish artist Miriam de Búrca’s drawings of clods of earth from cilliní – the unmarked graves of those deemed unfit for Christian burial – forces us to confront an uncomfortable history.

Full list of emerging artists: Emii Alrai (b. 1993); Catherine Anyango Grünewald (b.1982); Josephine Baker (b.1990); Miriam de Búrca (b.1972); Somaya Critchlow (b.1993); Jake Grewal (b.1994); David Haines (b.1969); Rosie Hastings & Hannah Quinlan (b.1991); Mary Herbert (b.1988); Jessie Makinson (b.1985); Sam Metz, Jade Montserrat (b.1981); Ro Robertson (b. 1984); Sin Wai Kin (b.1991); Charmaine Watkiss (b.1964)

Drawing attention: emerging artists in dialogue

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