Exploring emotion and myth: Alison Lambert’s captivating new exhibition opens at Derby Museums

Derby Museums presents a striking new exhibition by renowned British artist Alison Lambert, whose large-scale charcoal drawings and monotype prints explore the depths of human emotion and mythology.

Human Explorations – Lambert’s first solo exhibition since 2017 – showcases a powerful collection of large-scale charcoal drawings and monotypes created over the past five years and featuring several earlier works. Born in England in 1957, Lambert has established an international reputation as one of the foremost British artists working with the human figure. Lambert’s work features in public collections across the world including the V&A, British Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Lambert’s work is characterised by physicality and spontaneity. She builds her figures using a collage technique, allowing her to ‘find’ the image she is searching for by layering and tearing her paper and re-drawing areas that don’t feel right. For Lambert, the process is long and arduous yet challenging as it features an element of chance and accident, requiring an intuitive dialogue with the works as they progress.

The exhibition occupies two adjacent galleries at Derby Museum and Art Gallery, with the first featuring a series of large-scale human heads which serve as an investigation into human feelings, raw emotions and the human condition. Made without models, Lambert began with photographic references, which were discarded as the works evolved and Lambert allowed her intuition to take over. Through tearing and re-drawing, Lambert engages in an intense dialogue with the work, allowing each portrait’s emotional character to emerge.

While the first gallery offers an intimate exploration of human emotion, the second expands into a mythological world, blurring the line between reality and imagination through the inclusion of mythical figures, horses and minotaurs. Born from an exploration of imaginary landscapes, these works began with Lambert sprinkling charcoal dust onto paper, where human and animal forms gradually emerged. Through working into these nebulous images – many alterations involving new paper being attached, drawn over and sometimes torn away again revealing new possibilities – the drawings gradually evolved. These works explore ancient ideas, taking viewers beyond the human world.

Of the exhibition, Alison Lambert said: “It is wonderful to see my charcoal drawings and monotypes so beautifully displayed in these two adjacent galleries at Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

The drawings began with an offer of a large solo exhibition at the gallery. That offer inspired a desire to return to concentrate on the human head as subject, but this time I wanted to delve more deeply into the human psyche raising more general thoughts about the contemporary ‘human condition’.

Many changes occurred during each dialogue and were documented through a series of progress photographs. For example the drawing ‘Bellerphoron’ went through ninety documented stages, now presented as an animated video in the exhibition.”

Dr Catherine Pütz, the exhibition’s curator and Head of Public Engagement at the Courtauld Institute of Art, said: “Alison Lambert’s drawings remind us that hope is hard work and needs intentional practice. Their arresting physicality also stops us in our tracks. We need to make space for it. We need to learn to look again, creating a new space for thoughtfulness and surprise. The work surprises us with the realisation that silence can be a form of collaboration – creating space for another’s emotional response. We find room there to remake ourselves.”

Dr Alex Rock, Director of Commercial and Operations at Derby Museums, said: “We are delighted to present a new exhibition of Alison Lambert’s work at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Derby has a rich heritage of creativity and making, and Alison’s compelling drawings and monotypes resonate strongly with this legacy. Her work sits alongside figures such as Joseph Wright and Marion Adnams in our Gallery, artists who advanced the practice of figurative drawing, something Alison does with remarkable depth and intensity. Her raw, distinctive style is both powerful and evocative. We look forward to seeing how visitors respond.”

Human Exploration: Heads and Myths is now open at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Find out more here: https://derbymuseums.org/event/alison-lambert-human-exploration-heads-and-myths