Our top picks of exhibitions together with cultural spaces and places, both online and in the real world.

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Viewing Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture at Saatchi Gallery

The Wick Culture - Viviane Sassen, In Bloom (shot for Dazed & Confused magazine), 2011. Photo courtesy of Saatchi Gallery

Above Viviane Sassen, In Bloom (shot for Dazed & Confused magazine), 2011. Photo courtesy of Saatchi Gallery

The Wick Culture - Rebecca Louise Law, installation. Photo courtesy of Matt Chung

Above Rebecca Louise Law, installation. Photo courtesy of Matt Chung

The Wick Culture - Pedro Almodóvar, Menina, 2019. Photo courtesy of Saatchi Gallery

Above Pedro Almodóvar, Menina, 2019. Photo courtesy of Saatchi Gallery

The Wick Culture - Marc Quinn, The Sunny Side of the Moon (In The Night Garden), 2010. Photo courtesy of Marc Quinn studio.

Above Marc Quinn, The Sunny Side of the Moon (In The Night Garden), 2010. Photo courtesy of Marc Quinn studio.

Above Viviane Sassen, In Bloom (shot for Dazed & Confused magazine), 2011. Photo courtesy of Saatchi Gallery

Above Rebecca Louise Law, installation. Photo courtesy of Matt Chung

Above Pedro Almodóvar, Menina, 2019. Photo courtesy of Saatchi Gallery

Above Marc Quinn, The Sunny Side of the Moon (In The Night Garden), 2010. Photo courtesy of Marc Quinn studio.

Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture

Saatchi Gallery
12 February – 5 May 2025

The Saatchi Gallery has stepped up its programming of late, and the latest in a run of engaging group shows is this mega exploration of flowers in art through the ages, perfectly timed to run into late spring.

Flowers is a massive undertaking, with a participating artist list that reads like a who’s who of art, occupying nine gallery spaces over two floors. From large-scale installations to photography, archival objects to fashion, there are an incredible array of more than 500 artworks on show here, including an awe-inspiring installation of 10,000 dried flowers taking over an entire room.

One thing this does is show the perennial, universal artistic impulse to immortalize nature, but also just how many different ways flora can be perceived and depicted, as symbols, subjects and sources of inspiration. And of course, the undercurrent looks to the future, and to what is under threat in the current climate emergency.

Viewing Bianca Raffaella at Flowers Gallery

The Wick Culture - The Leaves Hast Never Known, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

Above The Leaves Hast Never Known, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

The Wick Culture - Viewless Wings, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

Above Viewless Wings, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

The Wick Culture - Murmurous Shadows, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

Above Murmurous Shadows, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

Above The Leaves Hast Never Known, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

Above Viewless Wings, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

Above Murmurous Shadows, 2024. Photo courtesy of Antonio Parente

Bianca Raffaella: Faint Memories

Flowers Gallery
12 February – 15 March 2025

The Wick have been looking forward to this one, since Bianca Raffaella featured as Spotlight in November 2024. The Margate-based artist’s debut solo exhibition at Flowers Gallery, Faint Memories, marks an exciting moment for the young artist and features all new paintings.

A recent graduate of the Tracey Emin Artist Residency (TEAR), Bianca Raffaella creates evocative works. As a partially sighted artist, her ephemeral paintings draw viewers into her world by way of memory and sensory cues, capturing fleeting moments and images that appear only briefly as faint flickers or flashes of light.

This new collection of textured, tactile flower paintings relate to the artist’s experience of beauty in braille. Painted using touch as a guide, never losing contact with her canvas, there is a unique kind of expressionism in Raffaella’s sensual, fluid works, the result of a mix of tools worked over the surface. As Raffaella’s Champion for the Wick, Flowers’ director Matthew Flowers, put it “her ability to distill and communicate fleeting impressions into beautiful, ethereal, textural compositions is remarkable”.

Viewing The Face Magazine at The National Portrait Gallery

The Wick Culture - Voici Paris, by Stéphane Sednaoui, styled by Babeth Dijan, June 1988. Photo courtesy of Stéphane Sednaoui

Above Voici Paris, by Stéphane Sednaoui, styled by Babeth Dijan, June 1988. Photo courtesy of Stéphane Sednaoui

The Wick Culture - Global Warming TV, photographed and styled by Inez & Vinoodh, September 1994. Photo courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh and The Ravestijn

Above Global Warming TV, photographed and styled by Inez & Vinoodh, September 1994. Photo courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh and The Ravestijn

The Wick Culture - Face Off, by David Sims, January 1988. Photo courtesy of David Sims

Above Face Off, by David Sims, January 1988. Photo courtesy of David Sims

Above Voici Paris, by Stéphane Sednaoui, styled by Babeth Dijan, June 1988. Photo courtesy of Stéphane Sednaoui

Above Global Warming TV, photographed and styled by Inez & Vinoodh, September 1994. Photo courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh and The Ravestijn

Above Face Off, by David Sims, January 1988. Photo courtesy of David Sims

The Face Magazine: Culture Shift

National Portrait Gallery
20 February – 18 May 2025

The Face was a cult British magazine adored by many, published monthly between 1980 and 2004, and revived in 2019. The magazine reached cult status during its original run, known for a groundbreaking mix of fashion, music, photography and forward-thinking approach to culture.

The Face has been celebrated in exhibitions before but this new survey at The National Portrait Gallery is the most significant exploration of the publication’s position in British culture to date, bringing together more than 200 images shot for the magazine’s pages, many of them now iconic.

This exhibition is a soaring journey through the publication’s remarkable, innovative approach and a witness to how and why The Face became such an influence and arbiter of British culture at the time. Look out for photographs by the likes of Corinne Day, David Sims, Elaine Constantine and Sheila Rock, who all helped define The Face, and British visual culture with it.