The clocks have sprung forward, and with that familiar ritual comes a shift—not just in time, but in mood. British Summer Time is officially here. The days are stretching out, the evenings arriving with a gentler light, and the collective griping about the cold has softened, if only slightly. That flicker of change brings something else with it: energy. And right now, it’s rippling through London’s galleries. As the season turns, so does the city’s cultural engine, humming back to life. Here are Five Exhibitions To See In London In April 2025—each one offering a distinct lens on where we’ve been, and where we’re headed.
We begin at Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill, where Amoako Boafo opens I Do Not Come to You by Chance, his first solo show in the UK. Fresh off a major presentation at the Belvedere in Vienna, Boafo arrives with quiet force. Named after Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s 2009 novel, the show fuses autobiography and bold painterly flair—portraits that carry presence, both physical and psychic. It’s a debut that doesn’t announce itself loudly, but lands with unmistakable weight. One of the Five Exhibitions To See In London In April 2025, this show marks a turning point for one of the most talked-about painters of his generation.
Across town at The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ, the mood deepens. In Her Spirit, a duo show curated by Bolanle Contemporary, brings together Eilen Itzel Mena and Jemila Isa in a meditation on inherited memory, spirituality, and the spaces in between. Through painting, sculpture, and gesture, the artists channel ancestral voices—some whispering, some resolute. This exhibition doesn’t push itself into your line of sight; it draws you in slowly, asking for quiet attention. On view until 26 April, it’s a thoughtful, immersive stop on our ongoing tour of Five Exhibitions To See In London In April 2025.
From the spiritual to the surreal, Lorena Lohr shifts the scale and setting at Soho Revue with Motel Nudes, the latest in her Desert Nudes series. The works are small—miniatures, really—tucked into antique and hand-crafted portholes like pocket-sized relics. Each one is a fragment, a moment of stillness pulled from a dreamlike roadside. They feel personal but distant, like memories you’re not quite sure are yours. In a city known for its spectacle, Lohr’s delicate, devotional approach is a welcome counterpoint.
Next on our Five Exhibitions To See In London In April 2025 is Edel Assanti, the tone intensifies. Si On returns with Soft Armour, Heavy Bones, a show that lives in the space between flesh and feeling. Her paintings and sculptures confront the body as a battleground—sometimes grotesque, always moving. There’s a kind of fragile aggression here, a balancing act between survival and surrender. It’s her second solo outing with the gallery, and it doesn’t hold back. Visceral, emotionally rich, and deeply personal.
And then there’s Benjamin Levy, whose show Keeping Up With The Corbies at LBF brings the month to a sharp, sardonic close. In ten new paintings, Levy examines the theatre of appearances—how we perform, how we present, and what we hide. It’s wry, yes, but also tender. There’s an ache beneath the gloss, a recognition of the quiet toll of keeping up. His brush captures not just surfaces, but the strain beneath them. A fitting end to our curated path through the Five Exhibitions To See In London—a reminder that great art doesn’t just reflect the world back at us. It shows us something we didn’t realise we were already feeling.
Our Five Exhibitions To See In London In April 2025
Amoako Boafo: I Do Not Come To You By Chance
With I Do Not Come to You by Chance, Amoako Boafo makes his first solo appearance in the United Kingdom, inaugurating an exhibition at Gagosian’s Grosvenor Hill gallery that is as much a portrait of personal history as it is a statement of artistic vision. Taking its title from Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s 2009 novel, the exhibition marks Boafo’s debut with the gallery in London and signals a new phase in his evolving practice.
At the heart of the show is a dialogue between memory and material. In collaboration with architect and designer Glenn DeRoche—his creative partner on previous projects including a residency in Ogbojo, Ghana—Boafo has transformed the gallery space into something closer to a homecoming. Across three rooms, he maps out a narrative that is as autobiographical as it is architectural.
Amoako Boafo: I Do Not Come To You By Chance
10th April, 2025 – 24th May 2025
Gagosian
20 Grosvenor Hill
London, W1K 3DQ
United Kingdom
A Lovely Celebration, 2025
Courtesy of the artist and Bolanle Contemporary
© Eilen Itzel Mena
In Her Spirit: Eilen Itzel Mena and Jemila Isa
At The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ this spring, the quiet reverberations of ancestral memory and spiritual inquiry take tangible form in In Her Spirit, a luminous and searching duo exhibition from Bolanle Contemporary, featuring works by Eilen Itzel Mena and Jemila Isa. On view from 26 March through 26 April, the exhibition moves with solemn cadence through the ways in which Black women inherit, embody, and refashion spiritual lineages—through ritual, through gesture, through paint and sculpture.
Accompanied by an original sound composition by Avila Santo, the exhibition unfolds less as a static presentation and more as a living altar—where sacred pasts meet personal presents, and where the unseen is summoned through both sight and sound.
In Her Spirit: Eilen Itzel Mena and Jemila Isa
26th March, 2025 to 26th April, 2025
Bolanle Contemporary
The Shop at Sadie Coles HQ
Lorena Lohr: Motel Nudes
In Motel Nudes, the latest installment of the Desert Nudes series, artist Lorena Lohr extends an invitation to peer into a world at once intimate and distant. This collection, composed entirely of miniature works, recalls the tradition of the “love token” and devotional images found throughout art history—from the High Renaissance to the Victorian era. Seventeen portholes, both antique and custom-made, act as tiny windows, offering a moment of quiet observation, an Alice-in-Wonderland-like glimpse into scenes imbued with stillness and reverie.
Where the mythos of the American West has long been dominated by a cinematic flurry of rugged movement and male bravado, Lohr instead offers an alternative: a series of women captured in a state of complete ease. Reclining nude across motel beds, plastic chairs, and sun-scorched carpets, they are poised yet unhurried. Their gestures are subtle, their gazes self-assured—women at rest, wholly unperturbed by the world beyond their frame.
Lorena Lohr: Motel Nudes
19th March, 2025 – 19th April, 2025
Soho Revue
14 Greek St, Soho
W1D 4DP
Photo by Tom Carter.
Si On: Soft Armour, Heavy Bones
In her second solo exhibition at Edel Assanti, the South Korean artist Si On presents a world of disquieting beauty and psychological depth. Titled Soft Armour, Heavy Bones, the show brings together recent paintings and sculptures that continue her exploration of the body as a site of conflict, resilience, and transformation.
Si On works through daily, intuitive processes, building her pieces in layers — of material, memory, and symbolism. Her palette is vibrant, sometimes even hallucinatory, but what underpins the work is a steady tension between opposing forces: innocence and violence, humour and sorrow, strength and fragility.
Si On: Soft Armour, Heavy Bones
28th March, 2025 – 13th May 2025
Edel Assanti
1B Little Titchfield Street
London W1W 7BU
Oil on canvas
146 x 192 cm
57.5 x 75.5 in
Benjamin Levy: Keeping Up With The Corbies
In his latest exhibition at LBF, Keeping Up With The Corbies, the painter Benjamin Levy turns his eye to the rituals of want and the quiet toll of appearances. The show, composed of ten new works, takes the pulse of modern Britain, where social standing is as much about how one looks as where one stands.
Levy, who lives and works in London, paints with precision and purpose. His large diptychs—often matched by colour, line or gesture—draw attention to the ways we look: at things, at each other, at ourselves. They carry the feel of documentary, but the mood is unmistakably personal. These are not moral lessons so much as acts of close observation.
Benjamin Levy: Keeping Up With The Corbies
4th April, 2025 – 8th May, 2025
LBF Contemporary
13 Tottenham Mews
London
W1T 4AQ
Art Plugged is a contemporary platform inspired by a relationship with the broader arts communities. We provide our audience with curated insight into the world of art, from exhibitions to artist interviews and more.
