Exhibition Opening | Reaching, Touching, Shedding

Camberwell Space presents Reaching, Touching, Shedding, an exhibition of new work by Helena Samarasinghe, BA Fine Art Drawing alumna (2024), and winner of the Vanguard Prize (2024). Developed during her studio residency, the show brings together richly worked, large-scale drawings and cut-outs exploring sport, power, integrity and belonging.

Stylistically, the work draws on the bold, gestural contours of Kalighat painting. Produced quickly and circulated widely, these paintings foregrounded everyday subjects and disrupted colonial hierarchies and elite courtly traditions such as Mughal miniature painting. Helena extends this lineage through an amplified scale, emphasising tensed musculature and psychological intensity. Sporting performance becomes a site through which resilience, visibility and agency are negotiated.

Join us for music and refreshments to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.

This event is free and open to all, but booking is essential.

Please contact our team if you have any specific access requirements: publicprogramme@arts.ac.uk

Exhibition runs: 15 May – 17 July 2026, Thursday - Saturday (11am - 4pm)

Image: Helena Samarasinghe, Reaching, Touching, Shedding, chalk pastel on paper, 2025. Image courtesy the artist.

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About Helena Samarasinghe
Helena Samarasinghe is a British–South Asian artist working primarily in drawing. A 2024 graduate of BA Drawing at Camberwell College of Arts, her practice uses sport as a personal and political framework to engage with postcolonial discourse, centralising brown female identity. Stylistically inspired by the bold, gestural lines of Kalighat painting, her work is situated within a lineage of feminist resistance. Her subjects, characterised by tensed muscles and discerning expressions, use sporting performance to convey embodied resilience.

About the Vanguard Prize
The Vanguard Prize supports emerging artists and strengthens Vanguard Court’s strong links with Camberwell College of Arts. Since 2010, it has supported recent graduates to develop their practice and careers through a year’s free studio residency and mentoring, culminating in an exhibition at the College.

The residency was previously awarded to Murray O’Grady (BA Fine Art: Sculpture 2010), Philip Li (BA Ceramics 2011), Phillip Booth (BA Fine Art: Painting 2012), Lauren Allen (BA Fine Art: Painting 2013), Alex Deveraux (BA Fine Art: Sculpture 2014), Queenie Clarke (BA Fine Art: Drawing 2015), Billy Crosby (BA Fine Art: Painting 2016), Rosie Ward (BA Fine Art: Sculpture 2017), Gwendolyn Spink (BA Fine Art: Drawing 2018), Isobel Finlay (BA Fine Art: Drawing 2019), Niccolo Binda (BA Fine Art: Drawing 2020), Amir Dehghan (BA Fine Art: Photography 2021), Robin Pickering (BA Fine Art: Painting 2022), Stella Pearce (BA Fine Art: Painting 2021).