Pippa El-Kadhi Brown is a London-based artist with British and Iraqi heritage.
She graduated from MA Painting at Royal College of Art (2022), after studying BA Painting at The University of Brighton, School of Art (2018).
Volcanic in nature, her paintings gurgle, swell, and spit things up from beneath. Playing with the mind’s eye as a tool of enquiry, Pippa uses painting as a form of excavation by pulling sensation from below the surface and translating the human psyche into dense, dreamlike terrains; otherworlds which are drunk on the spirit of childhood and romanced by the knotty logic of dreams.
She builds layered dancing dreamscapes where the unconscious ‘thingness’ of being—grainy textures of clunky video games, faded 90s bedsheets, meteor showers, and the twisting movement of cool air— collapse into one another and erupt. There’s romance, anxiety, irony, humour, and an always-lurking hum of nostalgia.
Pippa was artist-in-residence at Tabari Artspace’s La Serena Residency (Tuscany, 2025). She was also artist in residence at Palazzo Monti (Brescia, 2025) and was the Freelands Foundation Fellow hosted at Manchester School of Art (Manchester, 2024-2025).
Pippa has also received The Ali H. Alkazzi Scholarship Award (RCA, 2020), The Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize (London, 2020), The Organhaus Studio Residency, (Chongqing, 2019), The Art Pegazs Taste of Life Award (Riga, 2019) and The Creekside Studio Award (London, 2019).
EDUCATION
2020–2022, Royal College of Art, Painting MA
2015–2018, University of Brighton, School of Art, Painting BA
2014–2015, UAL Camberwell College of the Arts, Foundation
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025, Stranger Skies, Holden Gallery, Manchester
2024, Haunt, Ed Cross Gallery, London
2023, Walls Who Whisper, Lychee One, London
2023, Vista, Lamb Gallery, London
2022, Where the Dust Settles, CBU Gallery, Taipei
2020, Around You, Within You, Or Nowhere at All, Ashurst, London
2019, House Plants, Creekside Projects, London
DUO + TRIO EXHIBITIONS
2024, Sympoiesis, Gallery Kabinett, Seoul
2023, Imagination Rooms, Cromwell Place, London
2023, Our House, The Platform, Antwerp
2019, Cat’s Mother; Her, She, Organhaus, Chongqing
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025, The Sway of Form, Gillian Jason Gallery, London
2025, A Journey into the Unknown, Haricot Gallery, London
2025, Unbound Territories, Dubai Foundry x Gillian Jason Gallery, Dubai
2025, Enfold, Unfurl, Freelands Foundation, London
2025, Myriad, Oceans Apart, Manchester
2025, Presently Fragmented, Hurst Contemporary, London
2024, The Way of All Flesh, Delphian Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, London
2024, Fair Ground, Glyndebourne Opera House, Lewes
2024, Beyond the Capital 3, Saan 1, Manchester
2024, Ah, the Mark on the Wall, It Was a Snail!, Tiderip, Shenzhen
2024, Levitate, Hayaty Diaries, London
2024, Flatlands, FG Gallery, Knutsford
2024, Wake Up and Smell the Roses, Morrell House, London
2023, Let Them Eat Fake, BWG Gallery, London
2023, The Angel in the House, Studio West, London
2023, Extension, Phony Art Collective, Brighton
2023, Still Life, Still Living, Lamb Gallery, São Paulo
2023, The Ripple Effect, Liepaja Museum, Latvia
2023, In Living Colour, Amp Gallery, London
2022, Culture Expo, Culture Centre, Ningbo
2022, Beijing Contemporary Art Expo, Beijing
2022, The Infinite Game: Hide and Seek, WAS Art Centre, Ningbo
2022, Fancy a Bite?, Studio West, London
2022, RCA 2022 Degree Show, RCA Battersea, London
2022, Timelines, Peckham Safehouse, London
2022, The Booth Without an Art Fair, SET Woolwich, London
2022, Garden of the New Deity, Lí Gallery, Shanghai
2021, Under the Same Sky, Peckham Safehouse, London
2021, Star Start 2, Rear Window Gallery, Hangzhou
2021, Further Than the Eye Can See, Barkney Wick, London
2021, Interior, Exterior, Sala Salon, London
2021, The Running Water Takes Me to a Farther Lake, Meisyakan, Ningbo
2021, How About a Summer Show, Buran Art Gallery, Ningbo
2021, Brighten Up the Night, Yuan Art Museum, Hangzhou
2021, WiP Show 2021, Royal College of Art, Online
2020, Exhibition 104, Amina Malik Gallery, London
2020, A World Without End, No Barking Art, Online
2020, DragonT, Ugly Duck, London
2019, Meet and See, Wushan Art Centre, Chongqing
2019, The Taste of Life, Art Pegazs, Riga
2019, The London Ultra, Bargehouse OXO Tower Wharf, London
2019, Bleur, Monochrome Studios, London
2019, Binary, Partisan Collective, Manchester
2018, Present Perfect Continuous, Old Biscuit Factory, London
2018, Rising Talent, Hastings Art Forum, Hastings
2018, Graduate Show, University of Brighton, School of Art, Brighton
2017, Land and Sea, Barbican House Museum, Lewes
2017, Inbetween, Grand Parade, Brighton
2015, UAL Camberwell Summer Show, Camberwell University, London
ART FAIRS
2024, Zona Maco, Centro Citibanamex, Mexico City
2022, Start Art Fair, Galleria Foret, Seoul
2022, One Art Taipei, The Sherwood Taipei, Taipei
2021, Art Taipei, Taipei World Trade Centre, Taipei
2020, Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize Shortlist, Ashurst, London
SELECTED PRESS / PUBLICATIONS
2025, Enfold, unfurl, publication by Freelands Foundation
2025, Stranger skies review, Corridor8, by Laura Biddle
2025, Essay, The thingness of being: Pippa El-Kadhi Brown’s otherworlds, by Katy Evans
2024, Essay, A world inside out: new thresholds in Pippa El-Kadhi Brown’s work, by Lydia Earthy
2024, Vogue Arabia, print + online
2024, Ghost party, by Eloise Hendy
2023, These familiar things, by Noah Swiney, Imagination rooms
2023, The ripple effect, Liepaja Museum, RZ Collection
2023, In the studio with Pippa El-Kadhi Brown, Where’s The Frame, by Lisa Modiano
2023, Angels, ghosts, Tom and Jerry, Plinth, by Eloise Hendy
2023, Other voices, other rooms, by John Slice, Walls who whisper, Lychee One
AWARDS
2024, Freelands Foundation Fellowship Award
2023, Bloomberg New Contemporaries Finalist
2022, Global Design Graduate Award Finalist
2022, Chadwell Award Finalist
2020, Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize
2020, The Ali H. Alkazzi Scholarship Award, Royal College of Art
2019, Art Pegazs Taste of Life Award
2019, Creekside Graduate Studio Award
2018, Platform Graduate Award Finalist
2018, Rising Talent Award Finalist
RESIDENCIES
2025, Palazzo Monti, Brescia
2025, Tabari Artspace, La Serena, Tuscany
2024–2025, Freelands Foundation Fellowship Residency at MMU, Manchester
2019, Organhaus Studio Residency, Chongqing
2019, Creekside Artists Studio Residency, London
LECTURES
2022, Bath Spa University, guest speaker
2022, Manchester School of Art, guest speaker
2022, University of Brighton, guest speaker
2022, Royal College of Art, artist talk