Reframing History brings together works from four of Annie Kevans’ painting series: The History of Art, Collaborators, All the Presidents’ Girls and Wampas Baby Stars.

These individual series are thematically linked, exploring the deliberate neglect and erasure of historical figures, often women and those from minority groups.

It is a truism that history is written by the winners and that what they write is often only degrees of the truth. This exhibition calls into question the hierarchies of value put in place by historians, particularly historians of art and culture.

Through these hierarchies, which value one person’s work over another or work by one group of people over another’s, historians have manipulated, minimised and erased individuals, groups and behaviours in order to shape the narratives that they want to tell.

With her approachable and haunting portraits, Annie Kevans is doing the work of unpicking the dominant narratives and histories of which the subjects have been lost.

Her portraits of historical figures are in some cases imagined – where no image exists – or drawn from multiple images and filtered through the artist’s eyes. It is through these processes that she paints people back into existence, paints them into the present, and demands that we acknowledge them and hold to account those who still support their erasure.

The History of Art series, for instance, features women artists whose work and legacies have been and continue to be diminished. The presentation of this series, this reframing, highlights that women and people of colour are among groups that are still significantly underrepresented in the art world.

Reframing History: Paintings by Annie Kevans is the first in a series of exhibitions for 2026 curated under the theme of Future Histories. This theme encourages us to explore the ways in which the past continues to inform, configure and sometimes overshadow the present. It equally asks us to consider how our actions in the present will shape the history of tomorrow. It acknowledges that we are not only reflecting on history but also writing it.

Laurence Hill – Curator, Phoenix Art Space

Join us and Annie Kevans for the preview of Reframing History on Thursday 5 March, 6-8pm, speeches at 7pm with BSL interpretation by Dr Sue MacLaine.

For more information about the artist visit her website

Feature image: Marie Bracquemond (detail) by Annie Kevans, courtesy of the artist.