British-Canadian artist Lucy Ash presents 'Invisible Portraits' at Canada Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, running until 3 October. The free exhibition uses painting, film, and sound to highlight forgotten LGBT figures, including filmmaker Derek Jarman, painter Simeon Solomon, and poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Several works are dedicated to Ian Baynham, a victim of a 2009 homophobic assault near the gallery, whom Ash knew personally; the show includes a portrait of his sister Jen and a film on grief and loss.
The exhibition matters because it reclaims erased LGBT histories in a highly visible public space—Trafalgar Square—and connects personal tragedy to broader cultural memory. By centering figures whose lives were shaped by concealment and social constraint, Ash's work addresses ongoing issues of visibility and remembrance, using art to confront homophobia and honor those lost.