Continuing in my London travel series, I’d like to introduce you to the Serpentine Galleries (now officially called Serpentine South and Serpentine North) located inside London’s gorgeous Hyde Park and extending to Kensington Gardens.
On this visit in mid-October, I saw both exhibits, North and South. Serpentine South Gallery sits just south of the Serpentine Lake (on the Kensington Gardens side, near the bridge). The Serpentine North Gallery is across the lake, housed in a converted 19th-century gunpowder store.
Hyde Park makes Central Park in New York look paltry by comparison, although it is by far smaller. It’s an optical illusion perhaps due to its windiness whereas Central Park’s rectangle of 843 acres (341 hectares) is far larger than Hyde Park’s 350 (not including Kensington Gardens). Perhaps it is the lack of small hills or what feels like a longer expanse of water. In any case, the jaunt from one gallery to the other was a mere bridge crossing and short walk of less than 10 minutes.
Serpentine South
At Serpentine South, the interactive exhibit Peter Doig: House of Music explored the role of music, film, and communal gathering/listening spaces in his work. Using paintings, sound, and atmosphere, the show merged sensory realms – sight and sound, stillness and rhythm – into one experience.
I sat for a while, immersed in the acoustics, listening to the original Bell Labs sound system. It was acoustically exquisite – a rare treat to hear something so sonically pure in an art-gallery setting. The layered tones filled the room like light refracting through color.
One painting caught my eye immediately – its warm hues, figures, and reflections made me think it was set in Venice. My friend thought so too. But no – it turned out to be Trinidad, where Doig now lives and paints. That revelation changed everything: the painting wasn’t a European daydream but a Caribbean reality. It pulsed with a slower, hotter rhythm – the kind of light that hums through memory rather than geography.
About Peter Doig
Born in Edinburgh in 1959, Peter Doig spent his early years between Trinidad and Canada, before studying at the Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. His work blends dream, recollection, and cinematic atmosphere – landscapes that hover between places remembered and places imagined.
Doig has earned global acclaim for re-establishing the emotional power of painting in an era that often favored conceptual coolness. His lush brushwork, saturated color, and ambiguous narratives evoke both nostalgia and unease.
Among his many accolades are:
- Winner of the John Moores Painting Prize (1993)
- Turner Prize nominee (1994)
- His works are held in collections at Tate Britain, MoMA, and the National Gallery of Canada
- His painting White Canoe broke records at auction, affirming his stature as one of the world’s most valued living painters.
Doig is often described as a “painter’s painter” – someone who keeps the medium alive through mood, layering, and the suggestion of narrative rather than the dictation of it.
About the House of Music
The House of Music exhibition at Serpentine South is not merely a gallery show; it’s an invitation to inhabit a world. The space – part studio, part listening room – glows with the warmth of Trinidad, filtered through the painter’s mind. The inclusion of the Bell Labs audio installation deepens the experience, surrounding the viewer in what feels like an echo chamber of memory.
The show succeeds because it dissolves boundaries: between sound and silence, art and audience, north and south. You don’t just look – you listen, breathe, and feel. The lounge-like atmosphere encourages you to linger, to let the paintings’ colors harmonize with the sound waves curling through the air.
What could have been a gimmick turns instead into a holistic encounter – an exploration of what it means to see with your ears and hear with your eyes.
For me, it was more than a visit. It was a sensory communion – a reminder that art, at its best, doesn’t just hang on walls. It reverberates.
Peter Doig: House of Music runs from10 October 2025 – 8 February 2026.
Serpentine Galleries+1 Located at Kensington Gardens,
London W2 3XA (Serpentine South Gallery),
United Kingdom.
Contact: information@serpentinegalleries.org
Serpentine North
Serpentine North’s “The Delusion” exhibit of Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s game designed exhibit promised a glimpse into a dystopian, sci-fi future – but what it delivered was far less imaginative and even less engaging. The installation was meant to spark dialogue about social media, loneliness, and depression, yet it failed spectacularly to do so. No one wanted to “interact” with a non-human interface, and that apathy defeated the very premise of the show.
Shirley’s written and graphic worlds in print are far more engaging and convincing than this 3D version attempt at her poignant messages of the terror of hate and exclusion, division and blinders-on-opinionated ranters.
Upon entry, signage greeted visitors instructing them to answer questions posed by what resembled a cheap plastic fortune-teller – the kind you’d find at a carnival. Except here, the fortune-teller was nothing more than a digital advertising screen flashing prompts, expecting visitors to shout or pontificate their thoughts into the void. It was, frankly, a gimmick.
I wish there were a guide each step of the way who conversed with me and other guests to elicit our opinions and to offer theirs. If a real person had started a genuine exchange, which could be recorded or transcribed later on the digital display, it might have worked. Instead, The Delusion became exactly what it claimed to critique: a one-way monologue with a machine.
The Delusion was created by Danielle Brathwaite‑Shirley and runs from 30 September 2025 through 18 January 2026.
Located at West Carriage Drive,
London W2 2AR,
United Kingdom
information@serpentinegalleries.org
If you want to read more about my London explorations, read my article on the Freemasonry Museum.
Let’s Talk:
What’s the strangest gallery/exhibition you’ve been to? Did it grab you or did you think it needed improvement?