Two seated figures sort lemons at a table in Lubaina Himid’s Bitter Battles (2023), a painting extends her long-standing practice of using painting and installation to stage history as an active, contested space. The work confronts conflict not as spectacle, but as an accumulation of quiet, grinding struggles shaped by empire, trade, and racialized power. Through her characteristic use of bold color, flattened perspective, and carefully choreographed figures, Himid evokes scenes that feel both theatrical and archival, as if memories are performing themselves. The title suggests, with a sly nod to the sour taste of the citrus fruit, confrontation, yet the battles here are often internal, bureaucratic, or domestic, unfolding across tables, ships, and interiors rather than open fields. Himid’s visual language resists heroic resolution: her figures are often poised, paused, or mid-gesture, inviting viewers to consider what has been omitted from official narratives. The beauty of the surfaces and rhythmic repetition of her works offer solace, reminding us that aesthetic pleasure can coexist with historical violence. The work asks who is allowed to speak, who labors unseen, and who bears the cost of progress. In Bitter Battles, Himid reframes history as something unfinished and in constant negotiation. By foregrounding Black presence and agency, she challenges inherited myths and opens space for alternative readings. The result is a reflective, insistent meditation on power, memory, and the persistence of struggle today, urgently, and without compromise. Himid will represent Britain at the Venice Biennale in May, 2026.

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