Likeness

01Odile MerriotWaiting Room, Blue Coat, 2026Oil on linen · 152 × 99 cm

Merriot paints the coat before the woman. Stand a step to the side and look at the left sleeve: the blue goes down in three passes, the last dragged almost dry, so the weave of the linen shows at the elbow. The face is nearly bare by comparison, a few warm notes over the ground. The painting gives the coat its whole attention, the way she gives hers to a door we cannot see.

02Tomasz KerrowThe Step, 2025Oil on board · 90 × 135 cm

Two brothers sit on a back step as if they have been told to stay there. Kerrow lays the brick in with a loaded knife, so the wall stands proud of the board, then paints the boys thinly over it. Look along the step from the left: the afternoon light is the thickest paint in the picture. The ball is the only red in it.

03Priya Lindqvist-RaoTuesday, Late, 2025Oil on linen · 60 × 40 cm

A man reads at a kitchen table long after the light outside has gone. Lindqvist-Rao paints at night, at her own table, under the same lamp. The yellow of the shade is laid on thickly and left alone; the dark window behind him is thin enough to show the brush. The teapot is still warm, by the look of it.

04Priya Lindqvist-RaoAunt in a Green Cardigan, 2026Oil on linen · 60 × 40 cm

The sitter came on six Sunday afternoons, and the painting keeps a little of each: the collar was moved twice, and its first place still shows as a ridge under the green. Look at the buttons from the side. Each is a single touch of paint, set down and not touched again.

05Priya Lindqvist-RaoBoy with a Pear, 2026Oil on linen · 60 × 40 cm

He was asked to hold the pear still and has decided to take the job seriously. The pear was painted in one sitting and the boy over many, and the paint says so: thin and quick on the fruit, built up, scraped back and built again around the eyes.

06Emeka StroudHands with a Teacup, 2026Willow charcoal on paper · 56 × 52 cm

Stroud draws hands the way other artists draw faces. The cup is left almost white, found only by the dark of the fingers around it. Much of the tone was rubbed back with a cloth and drawn again, so the knuckles sit on a grey ghost of an earlier grip. The cardigan cuffs are four lines.

07Emeka StroudProfile in a Beanie, 2025Willow charcoal on paper · 56 × 52 cm

A young man in profile, looking at something well past the edge of the sheet. The beanie is drawn with the side of the stick in broad, soft strokes; the nose and lip with its point, once, without correction. From the side, the charcoal lies on the tooth of the paper like frost on a lawn.

08Emeka StroudSister, Reading, 2026Willow charcoal on paper · 56 × 52 cm

She reads with the book held low and her head bowed to it, and the drawing follows the fall of her headscarf from crown to shoulder in one long line. Stroud leaves the page of the book as bare paper. It is the brightest thing on the sheet, and it is where she is looking.

09Yara DellowWork Shirt, from Behind, 2025Oil on paper · 36 × 33 cm

Dellow paints people at work, quickly, from behind, while they are busy with something else. The shirt is a single blue-grey, pulled across the shoulders in four strokes; where the brush ran out, the paper shows through as the light on the fold.

10Yara DellowPicture Book, 2026Oil on paper · 36 × 33 cm

A child's hands hold a book open at a page we cannot see. The book is a white rectangle and nothing more. Everything Dellow has to say is in the thumbs, which press the pages flat with more force than the book needs.

11Yara DellowVermilion Sleeve, 2026Oil on paper · 36 × 33 cm

Two hands, folded, one in a grey sleeve and one in vermilion. The red went down last, wet into wet, and was dragged at its edge into the grey. From the side it stands a little higher than the rest of the sheet, which is how the eye finds it first from across the room.

12Maud TellerinNan, Seated, 2025Bronze · 46 × 27 × 32 cm

Tellerin modelled this figure in clay over a winter, from her neighbour, who sat for an hour on Thursday mornings. The thumb marks were kept in the casting, so the shawl still shows where it was pressed into place. From the side, the folded hands sit exactly over the knees, and the back is as considered as the front.

13Maud TellerinHead of a Neighbour, 2026Terracotta · 34 × 23 × 24 cm

A head in fired clay, the hair tied back in a low knot. Tellerin works the surface with a wooden tool and her thumb, and here left both showing: the tool on the collar, the thumb on the cheek. The clay was fired once and left unglazed, the colour of a brick path after rain.

14Maud TellerinTwo Hands, Resting, 2026Bronze · 18 × 25 × 20 cm

A study of the artist's own hands, one resting on the other on a small block. The bronze is darkest in the creases and has been rubbed back to gold on the knuckles, where hands are most often touched. It is the smallest work on the wall, and it rewards a close look.