Workplace

Workplace is delighted to announce that Simeon Barclay has been shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2026.
 
Barclay is nominated for ‘The Ruin’, performed at ICA, London and The Hepworth, Wakefield in 2025. Commissioned and first presented by the Roberts Institute of Art, The Ruin is Barclay’s first live performance, bringing together spoken word and percussion by James Larter and horn by Isaac Shieh. The Turner Prize will be hosted at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) in Autumn 2026.
 
Simeon Barclay was born in Huddersfield, UK in 1975 and lives and works in West Yorkshire. He completed his BA at Leeds Metropolitan University in 2010 and his MFA at Goldsmiths College, London in 2014.
 
Barclay’s work draws on popular culture, bringing together contemporary and historical references from television, comics, theatre, modernist art, literature, sport and film. He reshapes and collides these references, often with humour, to explore the complex and contradictory narratives that shape the modern British experience, including ideas of memory, class, inheritance and masculinity.
 
‘The Ruin’ reflects on Britishness through the lens of Barclay’s upbringing in 1980s Huddersfield as the son of Caribbean parents. The soundscape combines early modern music, pop culture references and industrial sounds connected to Barclay’s youth and personal history. These sounds are layered with visual elements including lighting, fog and monochrome costumes worn by the performers, evoking the industrial landscapes of Northern England in ‘80s and ‘90s Britain. The piece is a dynamic and theatrical meditation on self-image, memory and the evolving myth of Britain.
 
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Portrait of Simeon Barclay 2026; ‘The Ruin’, 2025, ICA London. Photo: Anne Tetzlaff; Simeon Barclay, ‘Pop Pose’, 2023. Photo: Tom Carter; Simeon Barclay, ‘Portrait in a Landscape (The Yorkshire Rose (Side Elevation)’, Oil on canvas, 2022. Photo: Matt Denham; Simeon Barclay, ‘Pittu Pithu Pitoo’, 2022. Photo: Nick Turpin. Commissioned by South London Gallery, London.
 

Opening tomorrow | Ki Yoong and Rachel Lancaster are included in the group exhibition ‘Image World’ at Hypha Gallery 1.

We live in an image world. Pictures circulate at the speed of thought, shaping not only what we see, but how we understand time, value, and presence. The exhibition brings together artists who use photographic imagery and its mediated aesthetics to explore how visual culture registers the contemporary moment

Hypha Gallery 1 / No. 1 Poultry, London EC2R 8EN
Preview: Thursday, 23th April 2026, 6 – 9pm
24th April – 30th May 2026

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Ki Yoong, ‘You Are What I Wanted To See’, 2025. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace UK.

Now open | Simeon Barclay is included in the group exhibition ‘Curtain Up’ at The Lowry, Manchester.

‘Curtain Up’ is a group exhibition that explores how visual artists have sought to capture the shared anticipation, heightened emotions, and communal energy of being in an audience.

Featuring works by Simeon Barclay, Denzil Forrester, Joy Labinjo, Ryan Mosley, Abigail Reynolds, Bridget Smith, and major new commissions by Rowland Hill, Chris Paul Daniels and Ulla von Brandenburg.

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Simeon Barclay, ‘Look No Hands’ 2018; Simeon Barclay ‘A track with no name’, 2018. Photos: Michael Pollard. Courtesy the Artist and The Lowry Manchester.

We presented new work by Rachel Lancaster at Art Cologne Palma Mallorca.

Lancaster’s practice is focused on painting and its intersections with the languages of cinema, music and photography. Photographic stills from obscure ‘B-movies’ often from the 80s and 90s - the artists formative years - are selected, edited and then translated into oil paintings.

Lancaster’s paintings represent detailed fragments of a greater narrative. She is drawn to seemingly insignificant passing shots, extreme close ups of inanimate objects, common place domestic interiors; the split-second liminal moments that are in-between the action. Divorced physically from their position within a narrative structure, these paintings become temporally abstracted; ambiguous and open ended as to the unknown events which have preceded or may follow.

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Rachel Lancaster, ‘Within the reach of me’, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK.

At Art Cologne Palma Mallorca we presented a curated display by gallery artists Laura Lancaster, Rachel Lancaster, Wang Pei, and Ki Yoong.

🔗 Visit the link in bio to explore our presentation

At Art Cologne Palma Mallorca we presented work by Ki Yoong.

Yoong’s paintings are marked by a quiet tenderness, underscored by his distinctive use of tightly cropped compositions upon found materials including copper, steel, acrylic, and glass. The removal of visual information opens space for projection, inviting the viewer to bring their own associations and memories into the process of looking. His works simultaneously explore portraiture and object making.

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Ki Yoong, ‘Now it’s gone’, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK.

Today, Sunday 12 April, is the final day of Art Cologne Palma Mallorca. Open 1-6pm.

Find us at booth P215 to view our group presentation including works by gallery artists Laura Lancaster, Rachel Lancaster, Wang Pei, and Ki Yoong.

Booth P215
Palau de Congressos Palma Bay, Mallorca
9 - 12 April 2026

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Laura Lancaster, In The Light, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK.

Art Cologne Palma Mallorca continues until 12 April. Visit us at booth P215 to view our presentation.

Booth P215
Palau de Congressos Palma Bay, Mallorca
9 - 12 April 2026

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Wang Pei, ‘The Fleeting Days’ 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK.

Opening today | Art Cologne Palma Mallorca

Find us at booth P215 to view our group presentation including works by gallery artists Laura Lancaster, Rachel Lancaster, Wang Pei, and Ki Yoong.

VIP Preview: Thursday 9 April, 12 - 8pm
9 - 12 April 2026

Booth P215
Palau de Congressos Palma Bay, Mallorca

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Rachel Lancaster, Up To The Light, 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK.

We’re delighted to be presenting work by Laura Lancaster this week at Art Cologne Palma Mallorca.

🔗 Link in bio to explore

The figure is central to the work of Laura Lancaster, its presence intensified by the opposing entropic force of abstraction which perpetually subsumes and engulfs the protagonist. Images that are of their era - located in time through incidental clues such as clothing, pose, and contingent detail - are monumentalised by Lancaster through painting.

Rendered ambiguous through the looseness of her brushwork, images gleaned from found photographic images are dissociated from their specific context and orphaned from their original narrative to be re-presented as fragments. Through this process of isolation and dislocation her works become uncanny and symbolic, operating as signifiers of a wider, collective memory and a shared existential consciousness.

9 - 12 April 2026
VIP Preview: Thursday 9 April, 12 - 8pm

Booth P215
Palau de Congressos Palma Bay, Mallorca

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Laura Lancaster, ‘Before You’, 2026; Portrait of Laura Lancaster, 2022; Courtesy the Artist and Workplace, UK.

Today, Saturday 4 April is the last day to view ‘Nothing Stands Still For Long’ at Workplace | London. Open until 6pm.

🔗 Link in bio to plan your visit

Including works by Pearl Alcock, Tonico Lemos Auad, Lubaina Himid, Barbara Levittoux-Świderska, Marlow Moss, and Paul Thek, ‘Nothing Stands Still for Long’ marks the intervals between falling and rising, moments shaped by gravity: like the tide, a possibility of returning without ever being the same.

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Installation views of ‘Nothing Stands Still for Long’, Workplace, London, 2026.