Cecily Brown returns to London with Picture Making, a landmark solo exhibition at Serpentine South, running from 27th March to 6th September 2026. Showcasing new and recent works, the exhibition draws inspiration from the surrounding Kensington Gardens and explores themes of nature, park life, and memory through Brown’s signature energetic brushwork and vivid colour.
Marking a significant homecoming after three decades in New York, Picture Making brings together paintings, drawings and monotypes that blur the boundaries between figuration and abstraction, offering a powerful insight into one of the most influential painters of her generation. Themes of nature and park life have long shaped Brown’s formal explorations and, for her exhibition at Serpentine, the artist revisits familiar subjects such as amorous couples, woodland settings and uncanny nature walks.
New works made specifically for the exhibition will be shown alongside a selection of key paintings dating back to 2001 to contextualise the continuities and evolutions that have taken place in Brown’s approach to painting over the past 25 years. In turn, recent monotypes and drawings offer insight into Brown’s broader practice, touching upon her early memories of the English landscape, her interest in children’s book illustrations, and the darker sides of nursery rhymes and cautionary tales.
The Serpentine holds such an important place in the hearts of the public and that’s what makes it so exciting to be showing my work here. As a young art student in London I loved to visit, and saw exhibitions there that influenced me enormously. It’s a huge honour to be having my first show in London at a site so full of memories but that is still so exciting and unique today.”
Cecily Brown
For Brown, painting is led by the medium itself and is an intensely physical process that makes visible the traces of her movements on the surfaces of her works. In paintings such as Froggy would a-wooing go and Little Miss Muffet (both 2024–2025), Brown collapses perspective, letting energetic brushstrokes shape each composition. Recognisable motifs, such as small figures inspired by Victorian fairy paintings, appear and disappear, thwarting narrative interpretation and inviting viewers to find their own entry points.
Picture Making is curated by Lizzie Carey-Thomas, Director of Programme & Chief Curator with Kit Gurnos, Assistant Exhibitions Curator.
Cecily Brown: Picture Making is at Serpentine South from 27th March to 6th September 2026.
Find more information here.
