May 22, 2026 |
This week, Hepworth Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, opens its latest exhibition, Crystal in the Shade, from Wolverhampton-born artist Lewis Hammond. His first solo museum presentation in the UK, this new body of work explores the home as a concept, posing questions around how we define the places we belong. The Royal Academy Schools graduate is known for his distinct style which portrays his eerie, sculpture-like subjects in dramatic compositions and lighting similar to that commonly seen in the work of 16th- and 17th-century master painters like Caravaggio, Velázquez and Zurbarán.
Often appearing in sites of cryptic domesticity, absorbed by obscuring shadows and in withdrawn poses, Hammond’s paintings offer distorted perspectives. Surreal yet classic, the painter’s work opens a discourse on the history of painting against the indeterminate, fractured character of contemporary life. This malaise makes itself known throughout his body of work in repeated symbols, like the hare.
Crystal in the Shade sees Hammond apply this brushstroke methodology to his personal feelings of alienation. “These new paintings continue with themes of belonging, alienation and attempts to make tangible an interiority of self, and how vulnerable we all are to the changing conditions of our time,” he says. As well being a landmark in his career, the exhibition marks Hammond’s return to his home country, where he will set up a new studio, after a number of years based in Berlin. This homecoming is less a celebration but a dialogue with loss, memory and belonging. It’s a bittersweet moment, but these paintings lean more into the sweet than the bitter as he honours the meaning of “home” and whether one feels they have one or not.
At the centre of the show sits a small enclosure offering refuge from the institutional space. Shadowed like the artist’s paintings, a bespoke scent of smoky wood, damp husk and musky humidity is pumped into the space to craft an unnatural sense of space. The version of home offered here by Hammond is unstable, in flux.
A new publication, Lewis Hammond: Crystal in the Shade, will accompany the exhibition, featuring writings from Julia Hori, Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Caribbean Literatures at University of Cambridge, Zambian-British poet and broadcaster Kayo Chingonyi and joint artistic director of E-Werk Luckenwalde (where the exhibition will land in late-2026) Helen Turner.
The presentation follows Hepworth Wakefield’s acquisition of one of the artist’s pieces back in 2023, offering perhaps a semblance of homeliness for him now he’s back on British soil. “Hammond is one of the most dynamic of the most dynamic and original painters working today,” says Marie-Charlotte Carrier, curator at Hepworth Wakefield. “Visitors will be invited to reflect on what it means to feel at home and who is denied that security today.”
In a time when most of us are being confronted by the harsh realities of the places we consider home, destabilised by division, conflict and an often pervasive helplessness, Crystal in the Shade offers a space to consider what it is we really need to feel like we belong.
Photography courtesy of Hepworth Wakefield. Find out more about the exhibition here.
