The Autumn Exhibition at The Pilgrm
October 2025 sees the arrival The Autumn Exhibition at The Pilgrm, showcasing a curated collection of works by inspirational new artists in London.
The changing season will see the hotel’s spaces play host to a series of pieces by emerging artists, many who have recently graduated from London art schools including the Royal College of Art, Slade School of Fine Art, Central Saint Martins and City & Guilds.
Each artist brings their own unique voice, reflecting a tapestry of styles and perspectives that engage with both the unexpected and the familiar. Set against the backdrop of the restored Victorian townhouses that form The Pilgrm hotel, this exhibition invites guests to discover fresh artistic talent in a setting where sustainable craftsmanship and thoughtful design meet.
Curated by Stephen Rothholz, The Autumn Exhibition will display a selection of works that is eclectic and varied, featuring paintings, prints, ceramics, textiles and stained glass; sensitively interspersed together.
With a passion for craftsmanship and design at its core, The Pilgrm’s dedication to art is as dynamic as its approach to hospitality, embedding an evolving art experience into every nook. Following numerous successful exhibitions over the last seven years with a broad spectrum of artists including the likes of Keith Cunningham, H A Rothholz, Peter Denmark, Jo Bondy, Janette Beckman and David Henty to name a few, The Pilgrm maintains a fresh, unpredictable and inclusive art program in a mission to provide a platform for artists whilst actively encouraging new and emerging talent.
"The Autumn Exhibition marks a first for The Pilgrm, bringing together the outstanding work of 15 artists across a diverse range of media. We are delighted to host such an inspiring showcase this season and look forward to welcoming art lovers to celebrate creativity with us."
Jason Catifeoglou, founder of The Pilgrm
The Autumn Exhibition is a rare chance for visitors to see the work of several artists from a variety of art schools and backgrounds, displayed alongside each other. Visitors will also have the chance to purchase original artwork from the show for their own personal collection.
Step into The Pilgrm this autumn and immerse yourself in an unfolding story of creativity and community.
The Autumn Exhibition opens at The Pilgrm hotel in London on 16 October and will be on display until spring 2026. Entrance is free.
Featured artists:
Marian Castro
Marian Castro Garza is a Mexican artist currently pursuing her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London, graduating in 2025. Her creative practice is rooted in the concept of a visual diary—each painting captures ordinary moments and transforms them into compositions that resonate with emotional depth. Her work often incorporates handwritten notes, anchoring scenes in specific times and places, enhancing their personal and universal appeal.
Drawing from the diverse environments of her upbringing, Marian’s distinctive colour palette evokes the various moods of her experiences. She primarily works in oils, embracing a spontaneous, fast-paced process guided by intuition rather than a rigid plan.
Rachel Barlow
Rachel Barlow is an artist from Cambridge, UK, now living and working in London. Her artistic practice is deeply rooted in exploring landscapes as vessels for memory, emotion, and belonging, with a particular focus on the geographies of southern Siberia, the region of her family's origins. Rachel Barlow offers a deeply emotional and conceptually rich painting practice, one that invites viewers to navigate layered landscapes—both geographical and psychological. She has also recently been selected for representation by the gallery Kultesa, based in London, with plans for her debut exhibition in their New York gallery in 2026.
Anna Curzon Price
Anna Curzon Price is a London-based figurative artist. She is currently completing her MA in Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art. Anna’s art bridges figurative painting, material experimentation, and performance/architectural interplay. Through the physicality of paper, painted bodies, and spatial staging, she investigates the subtlety of intimacy and relational experience. Her dual grounding in social anthropology and fine art positions her work at an intriguing crossroads of humanistic inquiry and visual expression.
Ruth Franklin
Franklin’s artistic journey spans several decades and media. After working as an art director in advertising, she pursued clay sculpture and printmaking—developing graphic and drawn forms that reflected her experiences of London life and travel. Ruth Franklin draws deep inspiration from her East London family heritage. Her grandparents, fleeing Poland and Russia in the early 1900s, set up a tailoring workshop in London’s East End. These personal histories drive her to explore memory, craft, and tribute through tangible objects—turning the humble tools of her forebears into meaningful sculptural works. Alongside her creative practice, she has taught art extensively—primarily at Camberwell College of Art (for 20 years) and at City Lit, London.
Freda Igiogbe
Freda is currently studying at Central Saint Martins (UAL), pursuing a BA in Ceramic Design. Freda is a British-Nigerian artist of Edo heritage who employs clay to explore and express her identity, particularly drawing upon her Nigerian roots and lived experience across continents. Her work explores fear, memory, and cultural identity, focusing on how childhood experiences shape emotional and spiritual growth. Through ceramics and storytelling, she translates these complex emotions into tactile forms, incorporating symbolic textures and imagery that reference African spiritual traditions, religious iconography, and personal memory.
Oscar Mathias
Oscar has just graduated from Central Saint Martin's Ceramics Design Degree. Oscar has created a body of work that his younger self would be happy to play with. A toy action figure can transport us back to an innocent time of play, recalling the excitement and thrill of being drawn into a different world. Oscasr’s ceramic figures replicate the removable parts of action figures and the alien world of children’s imaginations. For all of his life Oscar has created characters, these can be variously described as caricatures, monsters, demons and creatures. These have been drawn, painted, printed, sculpted and even encased in resin.
Rosie May
Rosie May has recently graduated in Ceramic Design from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Rosie May works primarily with porcelain, chosen for its delicate translucency. Her work is deeply inspired by principles of biophilic design—aiming to reconnect people with the natural world through form, texture, and materiality. This approach isn’t just aesthetic: it’s meant to create emotional resonance, transforming lighting into an experience rather than mere function.
Thymian Osborn
Thymian Osborn is currently studying a Masters in fine art at Central Saint Martins after graduating from City and Guilds of London Art School this summer where she completed a degree in Fine art. Thymian’s current practice poses the idea of reality television serving as an alternative moral guide to biblical parables. She explores how the frameworks of reality tv can mirror those within biblical passages, and also the way in which we communally consume reality television, challenging the notions of high and low culture. Material choice is vital to her work and she sets out to work with mediums and practices historically associated with churches in order for that link to come to life.
Ruby Read
Ruby Read is a young British artist originally from Shrewsbury, Shropshire. She earned her BA in Painting from Camberwell College of Arts in 2024 and is currently completing her MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London. Specialising in bold, emotionally charged self-portraits and human figures, Ruby’s canvases are rich with layered texture and a sense of intimacy. Rather than overtly feminist manifesto-making, Ruby’s portraits tell deeply personal, sometimes tragic stories. Women depicted are not passive icons—they are complex, haunted, and full of agency, yet weighed by imposed ideals.
Andres Vignoli
Andrés Silva Vignoli is a London-based painter who originally trained in architecture from the University of Florence in 2012. He is currently completing a degree in painting at the Royal College of Art with graduation anticipated in 2025. Andres’ background in architecture and cartography deeply informs his artistic approach; his artistic lens incorporates both natural and built environments, reflecting on ecosystems shaped by ecological dynamics and colonial histories. Andrés Silva Vignoli’s art is a compelling intertwining of ecology, identity, place, and culture. His practice is both personal and universal—inviting viewers into a slow, thoughtful encounter that reveals subtle references, hidden symbols, and complex histories.
Zoe Wilkinson
Zoe Wilkinson is currently completing a Master’s in Painting at the Royal College of Art, having previously received a BA (Hons) in Philosophy from the University of Exeter in 2021 which informs her conceptual depth—particularly her interest in feminist phenomenology. Zoe’s British–Guyanese heritage underpins her practice, influencing her exploration of homeland, identity, and cultural belonging. Her work is imbued with narrative and imagination, revealing poetic, visceral imagery—depicting the Caribbean-Gothic, botanical studies in Kew, and archival memory of matrilineal lineage.
Jo Bondy 1937-2015 *
Jo Bondy was a London-born Pop-inspired artist and educator who studied at St Albans School of Art 1957-59. She crafted art that was at once surreal and politically resonant—drawing from her background as the child of German-Jewish refugees and the turbulent heritage that followed. Her work—spanning assemblages, sculptural box-works, drawings, and ceramics, probed themes of gender, eroticism, class tensions, and feminist subjectivity.
Keith Cunningham (1929–2014) *
Keith Cunningham was an Australian-born painter and graphic designer who forged his artistic career in post-war London. He studied first at the Central School of Art and then at the Royal College of Art where contemporaries such as Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, and Joe Tilson recognized his talent. His tutor John Minton considered him “one of the most gifted painters of his year”. Despite early exhibitions at prestigious venues—the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, Beaux Arts Gallery, and the London Group—Cunningham withdrew entirely from public exhibiting by around 1967. Cunningham’s art remained largely unseen until after his death in 2014, when more than 150 works were discovered hidden in his Battersea flat.
Karen Thomas *
Karen Thomas is a British-born contemporary artist based in Montpellier, France, celebrated for her vibrant, expressionistic depictions of pop-culture icons. She brings well-known figures from superheroes to celebrity personalities to life with thick, lively brushstrokes in a painterly, loosely dynamic style. Her work has been featured in prestigious venues including The Other Art Fair, Art Below, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, SELECT Art Fair in New York, and the Berliner Liste in Berlin.
Renny Tait *
Renny Tait is an acclaimed painter celebrated for his striking, idealised depictions of architectural subjects. Trained at Edinburgh College of Art, the Royal College of Art (London), and the British School in Rome, he began with abstract painting and continues to bring that sensibility to his work. Tait reduces buildings -ranging from Venetian churches and medieval fortresses to industrial structures like Battersea Power Station - into simplified geometric forms with flattened perspectives. Critics note how Tait seems to draw inspiration from both classical masters like Bellini, Titian, and Poussin, and the modern abstract aesthetics reminiscent of Mondrian or Morandi, creating serene, depopulated architectural scenes.
The Autumn Exhibition opens at The Pilgrm hotel in London on 16 October and will be on display until spring 2026. Entrance is free.
The Pilgrm Hotel
25 London Street W2 1HH
To enquire about purchasing any of the pieces on display at The Pilgrm, please contact the artists directly except where an asterisk* is shown. *For pieces on display at The Pilgrm by these artists, please contact hello@thepilgrm.com
