Matthew Krishanu (b.1980, Bradford, UK) paints atmospheric, pared-back compositions including scenes from the artist’s life, particularly his childhood years in Bangladesh growing up with his brother, and their parents—a Christian priest, and a theologian. Some paintings reference religious scenes (clergy, church interiors, sacramental iconographies) while others center on recurring images of two boys, standing in for him and his brother, who often function as a single unit—or one boy, alone in the landscape.

Many of these works depict the natural world at scale—interlocking banyan trees, aquatic scenes, and other remembered environments. Krishanu is not, however, a landscape or portrait artist; instead, his narratives surface through memory and the picture plane itself, and, shaped by painterly technique and subtle distortions of scale and perspective, remain just beyond immediate reach. Sequenced in the galleries, each work connects to the other to tell a version of a past told from the present day.

Falling Into Place is Matthew Krishanu's second solo show in our gallery, preceded by Undercurrents in 2022.

Exhibition dates: 13 January – 21 February 2026

Talk: Matthew Krishanu in conversation with Tausif Noor

Thursday 19 February, 7pm 

3 E 89th Street
New York, NY 10128

An essential global survey of the most exciting contemporary painters, as selected by the world’s leading art experts

Painting is one of the oldest art forms, with roots in prehistoric caves, ancient Roman villas, and Renaissance portraiture. Today, a new generation of artists experiment, innovate, and breathe new life into this enduring medium. From immersive exhibitions with massive wall paintings to quiet, minuscule compositions, Vitamin P4: New Perspectives in Painting brings together 108 artists from 44 countries, showcasing the best contemporary painters around the world.

Nominated by high-profile art experts including museum directors, curators, historians, and critics, the featured artists range from established names to emerging stars. Each artist is represented by richly illustrated pages of their work, both individual paintings and exhibition views, as well as informative texts, giving readers an inclusive overview of their practice.

Featured artists include: Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Giulia Andreani, Firelei Báez, Alvaro Barrington, Maria Berrio, Anna Boghiguian, Miriam Cahn, Chen Ching-Yuan, Sandra Cinto, Daniel Correa Mejía, Felix de Clercq, Eliza Douglas, Kyle Dunn, Jadé Fadojutimi, Louis Fratino, Cy Gavin, Hao Liang, Lubaina Himid, Kei Imazu, Mit Jai Inn, Vojtech Kovárík, Matthew Krishanu, Victor Man, Ad Minoliti, Paul P., Qiu Xiaofei, Tschabalala Self, Salman Toor, Kay Walkingstick, Dyani White Hawk, Michaela Yearwood-Dan

Text on artist Matthew Krishanu, written by Elena Crippa, curator of Contemporary Art: Exhibitions and Projects at the Courtauld.

Publishes 26 February 2026.

Read more here.

Banyan (Two Boys), 2024 enters the Tate collection. The painting was acquired from Matthew Krishanu’s solo exhibition The Bough Breaks, Camden Art Centre.

Installation view, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 12 December 2025 — 31 March 2026

Curated by Nikhil Chopra, the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, For the Time Being, is an invitation to embrace process as methodology, and to place the friendship economies that have long nurtured artist-led initiatives as the very scaffolding of the exhibition.

Krishanu presents works including White Sari (Christ) (2024), Domed Church (Kochi) (2025), Cave and Madonna (2024), and Bishops and Altar (2021), paintings that hold within them the tension between everyday life, forms of reverence, and the need for reimagination. Krishanu divines a history foraged from memories and imagination that spans themes of family, childhood, play, and religion, among others, through a considered, restrained language of painting. These solidly painted figures in Krishanu’s paintings serve as “entry-points”. They are surrogates for us to imagine how we may occupy these times and histories. Through large, translucent strokes of thinned oil paint and acrylic, he pares back landscapes and settings, choosing affinity and suggestion over exactitude.

Director’s Bungalow
Aspinwall House
River Road, Fort Nagar,
Fort Kochi, Kochi,
Kerala 682001, India

The collection exhibition presents Finnish and international contemporary art from the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection.

The premise of the Dialogues exhibition has been the pairs or groups of works that enter into a free dialogue. The display, focusing on the foundation’s recent acquisitions, encourages to consider the works in relation to one another and to freely draw parallels between them. The exhibition is an invitation to engage in dialogue or conversation, that will hopefully foster myriad interpretations.

EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art
Exhibition Centre WeeGee
Ahertajantie 5, Tapiola
Espoo, Finland

en famille : To feel at home, as with family.

Adopted by English in the 18th century, this French expression is the starting point of the Government Art Collection’s new display at the British Embassy in Paris. It tells a shared story between two countries whose enduring relationship can be likened to siblings.

The display opens with Ronald Moody’s 1939 wooden sculpture, which was carved in Paris and abandoned when the artist fled the Nazi occupation of the city. Both countries have since witnessed seismic changes, including demographic shifts, social justice movements and an evolving world order. Works by Holly Hendry, Samson Kambalu and Jesse Darling reflect on these transformations. Meanwhile, Tracey Emin’s coral pink neon exclaims ‘more passion’, grounding this family saga in love, rivalry and reconciliations.

The display explores the idea of family as a universal point of connection, through the eyes of artists.

Curated by Jenni Lomax

Works by: Hurvin Anderson, Prunella Clough, René Daniëls, Matthew Krishanu, Bice Lazzari, Francis Offman, Pinot Gallizio, Amy Sillman and Caragh Thuring

Private view: Saturday 24 May, 12–6pm
Exhibition dates: 27 May–27 September 2025

Thomas Dane Gallery
Via Francesco Crispi, 69
Napoli

Read more here.

'BUILD IT, BEAT IT' is a charitable arts initiative developed collaboratively by Christie's and Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity (GOSH Charity). The initiative featured a collection of 30 artworks donated by 29 leading contemporary artists, including Peter Doig, Tracey Emin, and Jadé Fadojutimi. The artworks were auctioned during Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on March 6, 2025, with all proceeds directed towards building a new, state-of-the-art Children's Cancer Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).

The auction successfully raised £1,251,814 for GOSH Charity. These funds will significantly contribute to GOSH Charity's 'Build it. Beat it.' appeal, aiming to raise £300 million to construct a world-leading Children's Cancer Centre at GOSH, thereby transforming children's cancer care and saving more lives.

March 6, 2025

Christie’s
8 King Street
St. James's
London, SW1Y 6QT

Matthew Krishanu’s paintings are at once intimate and moving. The scenarios he presents, working typically in spare, thinned oils, have a unique cut-through - at once bristly and humane, quizzical and wonder-filled. Their imagery - drawing on a childhood spent in Bangladesh, where his parents worked for a Christian church - also cuts across boundaries in disorienting ways, addressing at once both European and Asian traditions. Krishanu, now 45 and exhibiting internationally, will discuss the decisions and discriminations that go into this strong model for 2020s figuration, in conversation with the painter and art writer Julian Bell.

26 February 2025

Royal Drawing School
19-22 Charlotte Road
London EC2A 3SG

Listen to the conversation here.

The exhibition focuses on the vitality and diversity of contemporary British painting, while foregrounding its practitioners’ ability to speak to both the history of their medium and to a broad spectrum of contemporary concerns. The title of the exhibition echoes an observation attributed to the seminal eighteenth-century British painter and theorist Sir Joshua Reynolds, that “a room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts”. Unpack these words, and what emerges is an insistence that making (and viewing) images is an activity that engages not only the eye, but also the mind. They remind us that a painting is set of ideas, given visual form.

Placed into dialogue in the Green Family Art Foundation’s exhibition spaces, the forty works (or “thoughts”) in the show come together to provide visitors with an insight into British painting today.

Curated by Tom Morton

February 15 — May 11, 2025

Green Family Art Foundation
2111 Flora Street, Suite 110
Dallas, 75201
United States

Read more here.

To celebrate Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, Bradford District Museums and Galleries collaborated with 125 young people to create an exhibition featuring artworks from the Government Art Collection. Curators requested pieces that would intrigue and engage young people in Bradford. After reviewing a longlist, a shortlist of 22 works on the theme of identity was chosen. Most pieces reflect the perspective of contemporary British artists, with two historical exceptions. Over six months, workshops and discussions were held with over 125 young people, aged up to 21, to explore these artworks.

I AM ME showcases the Government Art Collection artworks alongside the responses of the young people and shares some of their personal reflections about their own identity.

31 January 2025 — 5 May 2025

Cartwright Hall Art Gallery
Lister Park
Bradford BD9 4NS

Read more here.

Boy and Rocks, 2024, oil on paper, 29.7x42cm

Leading voices from across the field of contemporary art join forces to raise funds for essential humanitarian aid for Palestine through an exhibition and major online art auction. Over 300 artworks have been donated, spanning the disciplines of art, architecture, engineering, and literature. All proceeds will go towards the work of Médecins Sans Frontières UK / Doctors Without Borders (MSF UK) in Gaza and the West Bank.

Médecins Sans Frontières is an international, independent, medical, humanitarian organisation providing medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare.

Artist Fundraiser
14 Wharf Rd, London N1 7RW
18th November — 1st December 2024

Tanya Leighton, Los Angeles is pleased to present ‘Immerse’, a solo exhibition by London- based artist Matthew Krishanu.

In Matthew Krishanu’s ‘Immerse’ images blur at their seams. We are slowly submerged in fluid, dripping memories. Visions like they were forming in a dream, or becoming visible through a haze, lead us to fleeting protagonists, recollected time and sites in a state of temporariness. Under the seemingly idyllic, a range of emotional states and tensions seethe and unfold.

Immerse, Tanya Leighton, LA
4654 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles
26 October – 7 December 2024

Matthew Krishanu’s (b. 1980, Bradford, UK) major exhibition includes both paintings and works on paper. The artist’s atmospheric, pared-back compositions depict scenes from his life, including his childhood years in Bangladesh growing up with his brother and their parents – a British Christian missionary and an Indian theologian. Seemingly familiar narratives are alluded to but destabilised, and the viewer’s own projections are called upon to fulfil the interpretive loop, raising questions about childhood, religion, race, power and the legacies of empire.

Working in series, one painting segues into the next as a natural telling of the artist’s own journey through the joys and sorrows of life, with deeply personal subject matter that speaks to the human condition in all its complexity.

Camden Art Centre video on The Bough Breaks

File Note:
Waiting for the Bough to Break, Bidisha Mamata

Install views and talk:
Matthew Krishanu in Conversation with Isabel Seligman

26 April – 23 June 2024
Matthew Krishanu, Camden Art Centre, London

Beyond the Page explores how the traditions of South Asian miniature painting have been reclaimed and reinvented by modern and contemporary artists, taken forward beyond the pages of illuminated manuscripts to experimental forms that include installations, sculpture, and film.

The exhibition will feature work by artists from different generations working in dialogue with the miniature tradition, including Hamra Abbas, David Alesworth, Nandalal Bose, Noor Ali Chagani, Lubna Chowdhary, Adbur Rahman Chughtai, Samuel Fyzee-Rahamin, N.S. Harsha, Howard Hodgkin, Ali Kazim, Bhupen Khakhar, Jess MacNeil, Imran Qureshi, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Mohan Samant, Nilima Sheikh, Willem Schellinks, the Singh Twins, Shahzia Sikander and Abanindranath Tagore.

Beyond the Page is curated by Hammad Nasar and Anthony Spira with advice from Emily Hannam.

7 February 2024 – 2 June 2024
Beyond the Page, The Box, Tavistock Place, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AX

7 October 2023 - 28 January 2024
Beyond the Page, MK Gallery, 900 Midsummer Blvd, Milton Keynes, MK9 3QA

The title of the exhibition On a Limb references an idiom that dates to 19th Century America. To be “out on a limb” suggests vulnerability, and its origins refer to a person or an animal climbing a tree and going slightly too far. This sense of intimate fragility pervades Matthew Krishanu’s new paintings.

While continuing his focus on the figure in the land, collectively these works also seem to reflect on the nature of time: the split-second moment after a tree branch breaks, deep geological time of rock contrasted with the fragile human time of early childhood, instant photographic time and the revisionist time of the painter’s studio. Restful time. Productive time. The time it takes to make and the time it takes to look. The type of time that stretches uninterrupted over a summer’s afternoon. The finite nature of human time.

Jhaveri Contemporary
Mumbai 400 001, India
3 August – 9 September 2023
Matthew Krishanu: On a Limb review, Artforum, Mario D’Souza

Tanya Leighton, Berlin and Los Angeles is pleased to announce ‘A voice answering a voice’, an exhibition featuring works by Marcus Brutus, Clyde Conwell, Denzil Forrester, Stefanie Heinze, Matthew Krishanu, Joy Labinjo, Misheck Masamvu, Manuel Mathieu, Han Shen, and Zhibo Wang. Gesturing toward the exhibition as a dialogue between two cities, the show title is inspired by the eponymous heroine of Virginia Woolf’s ‘Orlando’, a novel about a semi-immortal, man-turned-woman poet who embarks on a three-hundred-year quest for love, recognition, and fortune, all of which are frustrated due to the enduring patriarchy under which she lives.

Marcus Brutus Clyde Conwell Denzil Forrester Stefanie Heinze Matthew Krishanu Joy Labinjo Misheck Masamvu Manuel Mathieu Han Shen Zhibo Wang

Tanya Leighton
Kurfürstenstraße 24/25, Berlin 4654 W
22 July — 26 August 2023

Taking inspiration from African American writer and novelist James Baldwin (b.1924, USA – d.1987, France), who observed that life is more important than art … and yet that is why art is important, Whitechapel Gallery presents a free three-month programme of collaborations with artists, performers and thinkers to examine the interface between art and everyday life, and connections between local and global concerns at a time of uncertainty and change.

Visitors are invited to find meaning and create poetic, playful and reflective connections as they explore works by artists including Rana Begum (b. 1977, Bangladesh), William Cobbing (b. 1974, UK), Sarah Dobai, (b.1965, UK), Susan Hiller (b. 1940, USA – d. 2019, UK), Matthew Krishanu (b. 1980, UK), Jerome (b. 1991, UK), Janette Parris (b. 1962, UK), John Smith (b. 1952, UK), Alia Syed (b. 1964, UK), Mitra Tabrizian, Mark Wallinger (b. 1959, UK), and Osman Yousefzada (b. 1977, UK) spanning sculpture, photography, film and installation.

Life Is More Important Than Art at Whitechapel Gallery review: shows why we need art too, Ben Luke, The Evening Standard

Life Is More Important than Art at Whitechapel Gallery, Jessica Wall, The Upcoming

Can painting ever bear the weight of grief?, Hettie Judah, Apollo

Life Is More Important Than Art
14 June - 3 September 2023
Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7QX

Explore work by over thirty contemporary artists with different approaches to their surroundings. Expand your notion of landscape painting in radical and playful ways.

Discover the vitality and variety of contemporary painting. Delve into themes of access to nature and environmental crisis.

The exhibition also tackles issues around equity, colonial legacies, and racism.

Exhibiting artists include Hurvin Anderson, Andrew Grassie, Lubaina Himid, Matthew Krishanu, Elizabeth Magill and George Shaw.

The exhibition is guest curated by Dr Judith Tucker, Senior Lecturer at the School of Design, University of Leeds and Geraint Evans, Pathway Leader MA Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London.

Arcadia for All? Rethinking landscape painting now (free exhibition)
26 April – 29 July 2023
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery
Parkinson Building.

15 September 2023 - 28 January 2024
Attenborough Arts Centre
Lancaster Road, Leicester LE1 7HA

An in-depth interview with the artist on his cultural experiences and greatest influences, from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Gwen John.

In the first episode of this new series of A brush with… Ben Luke talks to Matthew Krishanu about his influences—including writers, composers, film-makers and, of course, other artists—and the cultural experiences that have shaped his life and work.

Krishanu, who was born in 1980 in Bradford, UK, is one of Britain’s most distinctive painters. He draws on specific photographic images, including those of his family and his childhood in Bangladesh, yet his paintings are richly ambiguous, as he complicates his source material through emotion, memory, geopolitics, references to art history and literature, and the poetics of paint itself.

He discusses the transformative experience of seeing Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work, the ongoing influence of El Greco, his response to the work of Gwen John and the art in the caves of Ajanta in India, and his oeuvre’s intimate connection with literature, film and music. Plus, he gives insight into his studio life and answers our usual questions, including the ultimate: what is art for?

Listen to the podcast here.