Sue Webster: Birth of an Icon
31 January – 10 May 2026
The major opening exhibition of 2026 at Firstsite, is Sue Webster’s Birth of an Icon. It begins with The Crime Scene, an imposing wall-based installation of memorabilia and personal items pinned together with neon orange string connecting each object to resemble a familiar sight in TV detective dramas.
It also features a new audio piece, featuring Webster narrating The Crime Scene, examining how each work relates to the next to create an audio collage that connects all the pieces in her show.
From the intricate network of threads, a series of artistic journeys emerge, each sparked by the artist’s exploration of her influences.
Among them is a reflection on her youth, shaped by the music of Siouxsie and the Banshees, which helped steer Webster through a difficult adolescence.
The legendary post-punk pioneers further inspired a dynamic body of work, including a memoir, a collection of adorned leather jackets, and a striking series of self-portraits in oil.
17 leather jackets – all individually decorated by Webster – will be on display, complete with a bespoke soundtrack and video footage of a fashion show staged by the artist in her studio.
Webster’s relationship with her son, Spider-Ray is explored in a fresh series of self-portraits titled Portrait of the Artist as a New Mother as well as Birth of an Icon, a shrine to Spider-Ray that includes a painting and objects of importance relating to his birth.
Colchester Art Society at 80
17 January – 12 April 2026
To celebrate its 80th anniversary, Colchester Art Society will stage an exhibition comprising of more than 30 of the very best paintings, prints, drawings, and mixed media works made by members.
The works have been selected by Simon Carter (President of the Colchester Art Society, co-founder of the artist collective Contemporary British Painting and the East Contemporary Art Collection), Firstsite Director Sally Shaw MBE, and independent art advisor and specialist in pictures for the BBC Antiques Roadshow, Frances Christie.
University Centre Colchester Degree Show
20 April – 5 July 2026
Following Firstsite hosting UCC’s Fine Art degree course within its building in 2025, next year will see two simultaneous degree shows presenting the works of Essex University’s students.
Both exhibitions represent an exciting chance to see a whole host of artworks, in different media, made by some of the UK’s most exciting new creative talents.
Godfried Donkor
23 May – 30 August 2026
British Ghanaian artist Godfried Donkor (b. 1964) presents his first solo exhibition in a UK public art gallery at Firstsite.
From his longtime Brixton studio, Donkor interrogates the layered social and historical relationships connecting Africa, Europe and the Caribbean.
For this exhibition, he creates a series of monumental new works that uncover these intertwined histories through themes of masculinity, military culture, iconic female warriors and the complexity of their representation.
Donkor is celebrated for his distinctive collages—crafted from archival documentation, contemporary newspapers, gold leaf, and visual fragments from modern culture.
His work resonates with echoes of religious imagery and iconography, filtered through contemporary pop culture, identity politics, and even the exaggerated physicality of Italian theatrical caricature.
His layered paintings explore archival representations of cultural identity, setting unexpected juxtapositions—such as the female warrior alongside the Victorian lady—against striking parallels between the histories of British war captains, explorers, the transatlantic slave trade, and the world of boxing.
The Firstsite exhibition brings together large-scale paintings, collages, embroideries, works on paper, and an immersive soundscape composition responding to military ceremony composition.
These will be shown alongside historical loans from UK museums and a live collage studio, offering audiences insight into Donkor’s evolving research and process.
A specially commissioned hand-painted mural, reflecting on Roman runners and animated across Firstsite’s iconic curved wall, completes the exhibition.
Arpita Shah: Nalini
13th June – 5 October 2026
Nalini is an on-going series of work that focuses on the artist, her mother and grandmother. It explores the intimacy, distance and tensions between the gene rations of women in the family, and how histories, memories and bodies are intertwined.
Nalini was developed across India, Kenya and UK and is supported by Creative Scotland and Hope Scott Trust, it is a touring exhibition from Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow.
Polly Braden: Against The Tide
October 2026 – February 2027
According to a study by the University of Essex, half of all coastal towns in England and Wales are considered deprived, compared with 30% of non-coastal cities.*
With these striking statistics in mind, Polly Braden’s (b1974) Against The Tide will further show the impact of such privations on young people’s lives. This touring exhibition of Braden’s unflinching photographs focuses our attention on five coastal areas across England, including nearby Tendring, and develops a collaborative project with young people and their families to document their lives. Some of these initiatives feature youth centres dedicated to music, dance, art, or inspiring individual storie
Exciting exhibitions are on the horizon this year, and these are just a few of the highlights! We’ll be sharing more updates in the months ahead, so don’t miss out. Sign up for our mailing list and choose ‘Exhibitions’ to be the first to hear about all the upcoming shows.
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Images:
- Sue Webster, portrait by Alex Sainsbury (cropped) 2. Sue Webster, Portrait by Robert Fairer 3. Hellen, Ronald, Derek Jarman’s House and Boat, Dungeness. 4. VUCC Degree students, photo by Firstsite 5. Godfried Donkor. 6. Arpita Shah, English Blue from the Series Nalini © Arpita Shah. 7. Polly Braden, Millicent, 2025. Courtesy of the artist
