Soho Revue in London presents "Behind the Curtains," a group exhibition running from January 14 to February 29, 2026, featuring eight female artists—Lorena Lohr, Lucrezia Abatzoglu, Nettle Grellier, Drea Cofield, Kim Booker, Joline Kwakkenbos, Harriet Gillet, and Abigail McGinley—who reframe feminine sensuality outside the male gaze. The gallery is draped in deep red velvet, creating an intimate, private chamber that echoes Renaissance curtain conventions and the scale of 16th-century portrait miniatures, with each artist working in small formats to slow visual consumption and challenge who controls the frame.
The exhibition matters because it directly confronts art-historical traditions of voyeurism and objectification, repurposing concealment as a critical tool to question agency in the representation of female sensuality. By centering emerging artists and exclusively female perspectives, Soho Revue—founded in 2019 by India Rose James—uses format, installation, and image to test power dynamics among artist, subject, and viewer, offering a timely intervention in ongoing debates about self-presentation and the politics of looking in the digital age.