Nøkken brings together folklore, conservation, current affairs, and emerging technologies with Perdita Sinclair’s background as a therapist and her own experiences of memory, identity, and place.

Nokk is the Old Norse word for seahorse, while Nøkken is a shape-shifting water spirit from Scandinavian folklore. It can appear as a horse that lures children onto its back or as a creature concealed beneath the surface of a lake, as depicted in the paintings of Theodor Kittelsen, whose work became an early influence during the couple of years that Perdita Sinclair’s lived in Norway as a child. The hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and identity, takes its name from the Greek word for seahorse. Throughout the exhibition, the paired seahorses evoke the Roman god Janus, whose two faces look simultaneously to the past and the future, inviting reflection on transformation, duality, and the ways identity is continually shaped.

Seahorses are elusive animals, often hidden within their surroundings. Some are intentionally difficult to find within these works, prompting questions about visibility, attention, and value. In an age saturated with digital imagery, what escapes our notice can also escape our care. This applies both to threatened marine species and to our own shifting sense of self.

Created in collaboration with The Seahorse Trust, the exhibition donates 15% of all sales to support seahorse conservation and the protection of marine habitats.

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Artist bio

Perdita Sinclair is a contemporary artist whose work explores the strangeness of the world today. She has served as artist-in-residence for human dissection courses at Oxford University and Imperial College, collaborating with Functional Anatomy. Sinclair has completed US painting residencies at Mana Contemporary with ESKFF and created a major light installation for the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens. Her exhibitions span the UK and abroad, including the National Portrait Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Westbeth Gallery in New York, and Plan D Gallery in Düsseldorf.

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