The Coronation Commissions

Cornelia Parker RA (born 1956) lives and works in London. One of Britain’s most celebrated artists, she works across sculpture, installation, embroidery, drawing, photography and film to investigate processes of transformation and suspension and to explore the times in which we live. Over the last three decades, Parker has presented numerous major commissions and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, most recently at Tate Britain (2022), the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2019), Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster (2017) and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2016). In 2010, Parker was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts and made an OBE. She received a CBE in 2022. In 2017, she was appointed as the first female Election Artist for the United Kingdom General Election. Her works are held in public and private collections around the world, including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Fundación “la Caixa” in Barcelona, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Dale Lewis (born 1980) was born in London, where he continues to live and work. His large-scale paintings draw on his immediate surroundings and his personal memories to reflect on the realities of contemporary urban life. Lewis’ monumental compositions inherit the scale and compositional structures of Renaissance paintings and explore similar themes of metamorphosis and transcendence, but his paintings frequently invert such traditions to explore their modern parallels. Lewis has had recent solo exhibitions in London at Block 336 (2021), Edel Assanti (2020 & 2018), in Los Angeles at Nino Mier Gallery (2019) and exhibited internationally, most recently in China, Austria and Mexico. In 2016, Lewis was the recipient of the Jerwood Painting Fellowship. His work features in a number of international collections, including the Arsenal Contemporary Art (Montreal), The Roberts Institute of Art (London), Fundación AMMA (Mexico City), Saatchi Gallery (London), Zabludowicz Collection (London) and the Hort Foundation (New York).

Hew Locke RA (born 1959) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He spent his formative years in Georgetown, Guyana, before returning to the UK to study, settling in London where he continues to live and work. Locke fuses historical source material with a keen interest in current affairs, often through the juxtaposition or modification of existing artefacts. Through such altered objects, he explores the visual language of power and the symbols through which different cultures assume and assert identity. Locke’s previous work has been particularly focused on the UK, the monarchy and his childhood home of the then newly-independent Guyana. In 2022, Locke presented The Procession at Tate Britain and, later that year, unveiled Gilt, the Façade Commission at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Locke’s work is in the permanent collections of the Tate and the British Museum, Brooklyn Museum (New York) and Pérez Art Museum (Miami), among others. 

Joy Gerrard (born 1971) was born in County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, and today lives and works in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Working across print, photography, painting and large-scale public sculpture, Gerrard’s work investigates different systems of relations between crowds, architecture and the built environment. Most recently, Gerrard has produced large-scale ink on paper works to recreate global political events. Solo and group exhibitions include the Royal Academy of Arts (2022), Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery (2022) and Ulster Museum (2022), and she has exhibited widely overseas, including most recently in Austria and Sweden. Since 2004, Gerrard has installed several public installations, including at the London School of Economics and at Westminster Hospital. In 2020 Gerrard was elected an Associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin and in 2023 she was a Golden Art Foundation Fellow (New York, USA).

Leslie Thompson (born 1970) is a Manchester-based visual artist. His work, produced in collaboration with Venture Arts Studios (an art studio that works with learning disabled and neurodivergent artists) draws on his own memories, as well as popular cultural references from the 1970s and 1980s, to produce vibrant drawings, most often in ink but also on textile, in ceramic and in paint. While some of Thompson’s drawings allude to his upbringing in Manchester’s Moss Side area, others depict a rich array of flora and fauna or focus on the details of architectural assemblages. Often commissioned to produce live drawings, Thompson has gained a reputation as one of Britain’s most dynamic mural artists. His work has been exhibited widely across the UK, including exhibitions at The Lowry, Salford (2023), Paper Gallery, Manchester (2022) and Project Ability, Glasgow (2017) and, in 2019, his work was exhibited in Tokyo. Thompson’s work is held in private and public collections across the UK.

Mohamed Hassan (born 1984), born in Alexandria, Egypt, has been living and working in West Wales since 2007. Through photography, Hassan focuses on themes of identity and belonging and explores the lived experiences of those on society’s margins. His work investigates how both people and place shape how we experience the world, and his photographs incorporate autobiographical elements that reflect his own cultural heritage and personal relationship to rural Wales. Hassan has won several awards for his work and exhibited internationally, most recently in the Facing Britain exhibition, which toured Germany and Poland, as well as in solo exhibitions in Cairo, Egypt. His UK exhibitions have included shows at the Glynn Vivian (Swansea), Ffotogallery (Cardiff), Mission Gallery (Swansea), The National Waterfront Museum (Swansea), Oriel Davies (Newtown), and the National Portrait Gallery (London).

Shantell Martin (born 1980) was born in London and today lives and works between Los Angeles and New York. A public speaker, philosopher, cultural facilitator, curator, choreographer, songwriter and performer, Martin produces live illustrations, frequently at scale and often as part of live collaborations, exploring themes such as intersectionality, identity, and play. Martin has had solo shows at the Denver Art Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art and produced commissions for the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the New York City Ballet, as well as working with a number of high-profile musicians and designers.

Sophie Gerrard (born 1978) is a photographic artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Gerrard’s practice is characterised by sensitive and evocative visual exploration of the natural environment and our relationship to it. Central themes are people, environmental connection, identity and belonging, drawing from archives and personal narratives. Her work is often as much an exploration of others’ lives and connections with landscape as her own. Alongside being regularly published in international newspapers, Gerrard’s work has been exhibited in The Museum Europäischer Kulturen (Berlin), The Wardlaw Museum (St Andrews), The Martin Parr Foundation, The Photographers’ Gallery, The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, OFF and Perth Museum & Art Gallery. Her work is held in private and national collections across the UK and overseas. 

Vanley Burke (born 1951) has lived and worked in Birmingham since 1965, when he moved as a child to the UK from St. Thomas, Jamaica. Often described as the ‘Godfather of Black British photography,’ Burke is one of Britain’s foremost photographers, renowned for creating powerful imagery that exhibits great empathy for his subjects and challenges negative stereotypes toward British Black communities. Over a decades-long career, Burke has received much praise within the UK and internationally, especially for his striking images of Birmingham, his home city. Burke has had recent solo shows across Birmingham, most recently at Ikon Gallery (2022 & 2015) and Soho House (2022 & 2013), as well as in more publicly accessible settings such as community centres, pubs and churches across the city. Recent London shows have included the Victoria & Albert Museum and Whitechapel Gallery. In 2022, Burke was the recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Award for his contribution to visual art. His works are held in various collections, including Tate and the Arts Council, and his personal archive, the Vanley Burke Archive, was recently deposited at the Library of Birmingham.