The Cass Art Prize 2025 exhibition opens this October in Peckham’s Copeland Gallery, and it’s not playing it safe. With over 50 artists across the UK and Ireland, this isn’t just another polite survey of “emerging” talent. It’s a creative free-for-all, serving sculpture, printmaking, installation, drawing, and painting in all their gloriously messy, emotional, and rebellious forms.
Kicking off with a private view and prize-giving on 23 October, the free public exhibition runs from 24 October to 1 November 2025. With a hefty £10,000 prize for the top spot and new category awards, the Cass Art Prize is firmly staking its claim as a cultural heavyweight.
If you’re used to London’s art scene being all minimalist wine and murmured commentary, this exhibition might come as a shock. And that’s exactly the point.
From Monet to Margerrison – A Legacy of Disruption
The Cass name has been in the art game since the 1890s, backing legends like Monet and Van Gogh before they were cool. Fast forward 125 years, and they’re still championing outsiders, visionaries, and artists with something urgent to say.
Take Tony Margerrison. Once homeless, now shortlisted for a raw portrait of a DJ mid-makeup routine. Or Linda Hubbard, whose heartbreaking sculpture of a Gazan child’s foot brings war and grief into the gallery space, daring us to look closer.
This isn’t gentle background art. It’s gut-punch stuff.
Dreamers, Rebels, Realists – And a Few W*nkers
This year’s new categories widen the net: an Over 65 Award, an Emerging Artist Prize, a solo-show Judge’s Award, and even a dedicated Pastel Prize. It’s democracy meets curation, and it’s working.
Shortlisted artist Bella Easton turns memories of Victorian wallpaper into dazzling print-painting hybrids. Yasser Claud-Ennin paints sibling joy on woven Aso-Oke cloth, blurring family heritage with modern-day texture. Lorena Levi’s oil-on-canvas exploration of hair loss drips with both elegance and emotional depth.
And then there’s W*nkers of the World (yes, that’s their actual name), whose ‘Who Do You Support?’ installation skewers the UK’s obsession with political binaries via the unlikely medium of football scarves. Peckham, prepare to be provoked.
Sculpture, Sweat and a Bit of Scampi
Josh C. Wright scavenges construction waste to create teetering industrial sculptures that flirt with collapse. Lucy Ellerton immortalises pub snacks in London Plane wood. And Loke Catafalque turns personal surgery into a quilted textile confession of queer identity and spiritual reconstruction.
This is art with sharp edges – emotionally, politically, and physically. It challenges. It disrupts. But it also glows with sincerity and hope.
Peckham’s Copeland Gallery: A Perfect Fit
Tucked inside Peckham’s creative Copeland Park, the Copeland Gallery is the ideal setting. It’s unpretentious, a little rough around the edges, and packed with the same energy that runs through the exhibition.
If you’ve had your fill of sterile white cubes, the Cass Art Prize 2025 is your chance to see what the future of British art actually looks like – untamed, unpredictable, and refreshingly human.
Expect crowd favourites. Expect hard conversations. Expect a little chaos. This isn’t just another exhibition. It’s a mirror held up to modern Britain – smeared, splattered, stitched, and defiant.
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