Pippa El-Kadhi Brown British - Iraqi, b. 1996
Pippa El-Kadhi Brown is a London-based artist with British and Iraqi heritage.
She graduated from MA Painting at the Royal College of Art (2022), after studying BA Painting at the University of Brighton, School of Art (2018).
Volcanic in nature, her paintings gurgle, swell, and spit things up from beneath. Playing with the mind’s eye as a tool of enquiry, Pippa uses painting as a form of excavation by pulling sensation from below the surface and translating the human psyche into dense, dreamlike terrains; otherworlds which are drunk on the spirit of childhood and romanced by the knotty logic of dreams.
She builds layered dancing dreamscapes where the unconscious ‘thingness’ of being—grainy textures of clunky video games, faded 90s bedsheets, meteor showers, and the twisting movement of cool air— collapse into one another and erupt. There’s romance, anxiety, irony, humour, and an always-lurking hum of nostalgia.
Pippa was artist-in-residence at Tabari Artspace’s La Serena Residency (Tuscany, 2025). She was also an artist in residence at Palazzo Monti (Brescia, 2025) and was the Freelands Foundation Fellow hosted at Manchester School of Art (Manchester, 2024-2025).
Pippa is a recipient of The Ali H. Alkazzi Scholarship Award (RCA, 2020), The Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize (London, 2020), The Organhaus Studio Residency (Chongqing, 2019), The Art Pegazs Taste of Life Award (Riga, 2019) and The Creekside Studio Award (London, 2019).
EDUCATION
2020-2022, Royal College of Art, Painting MA
2015-2018, University of Brighton, School of Art, Painting BA
2014-2015, UAL Camberwell College of the Arts, Foundation
2025, Stranger Skies, Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK
2024, Haunt, Ed Cross Gallery, London, UK
2023, Walls Who Whisper, Lychee One, London, UK
2023, Vista, Lamb Gallery, London, UK
2022, Where the Dust Settles, CBU Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
2020, Around You, Within You, Or Nowhere at All, Ashurst, London, UK
2019, House Plants, Creekside Projects, London, UK
DUO & TRIO EXHIBITIONS
2024, Sympoiesis, Gallery Kabinett, Seoul, South Korea
2023, Imagination Rooms, Cromwell Place, London, UK
2023, Our House, The Platform, Antwerp, Brussels
2019, Cat’s Mother; Her, She, Organhaus, Chongqing, China
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025, The Sway of Form, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, UK
2025, A Journey into the Unknown, Haricot Gallery, London, UK
2025, Unbound Territories, Dubai Foundry x Gillian Jason Gallery, Dubai, UAE
2025, Enfold, Unfurl, Freelands Foundation, London, UK
2025, Myriad, Oceans Apart, Manchester, UK
2025, Presently Fragmented, Hurst Contemporary, London, UK
2024, The Way of All Flesh, Delphian Gallery, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2024, Fair Ground, Glyndebourne Opera House, Lewes, UK
2024, Beyond the Capital 3, Saan 1, Manchester, UK
2024, Ah, the Mark on the Wall, It Was a Snail!, Tiderip, Shenzhen, China
2024, Levitate, Hayaty Diaries, London, UK
2024, Flatlands, FG Gallery, Knutsford, UK
2024, Wake Up and Smell the Roses, Morrell House, London, UK
2023, Let Them Eat Fake, BWG Gallery, London, UK
2023, The Angel in the House, Studio West, London, UK
2023, Extension, Phony Art Collective, Brighton, UK
2023, Still Life, Still Living, Lamb Gallery, São Paulo
2023, The Ripple Effect, Liepaja Museum, Latvia
2023, In Living Colour, Amp Gallery, London, UK
2022, Culture Expo, Culture Centre, Ningbo, China
2022, Beijing Contemporary Art Expo, Beijing, China
2022, The Infinite Game: Hide and Seek, WAS Art Centre, Ningbo, China
2022, Fancy a Bite?, Studio West, London, UK
2022, RCA 2022 Degree Show, RCA Battersea, London, UK
2022, Timelines, Peckham Safehouse, London, UK
2022, The Booth Without an Art Fair, SET Woolwich, London, UK
2022, Garden of the New Deity, Lí Gallery, Shanghai, China
2021, Under the Same Sky, Peckham Safehouse, London, UK
2021, Star Start 2, Rear Window Gallery, Hangzhou, China
2021, Further Than the Eye Can See, Barkney Wick, London, UK
2021, Interior, Exterior, Sala Salon, London, UK
2021, The Running Water Takes Me to a Farther Lake, Meisyakan, Ningbo, China
2021, How About a Summer Show, Buran Art Gallery, Ningbo, China
2021, Brighten Up the Night, Yuan Art Museum, Hangzhou, China
2021, WiP Show 2021, Royal College of Art, Online
2020, Exhibition 104, Amina Malik Gallery, London, UK
2020, A World Without End, No Barking Art, Online
2020, DragonT, Ugly Duck, London, UK
2019, Meet and See, Wushan Art Centre, Chongqing, China
2019, The Taste of Life, Art Pegazs, Riga, Latvia
2019, The London Ultra, Bargehouse OXO Tower Wharf, London, UK
2019, Bleur, Monochrome Studios, London, UK
2019, Binary, Partisan Collective, Manchester, UK
2018, Present Perfect Continuous, Old Biscuit Factory, London, UK
2018, Rising Talent, Hastings Art Forum, Hastings, UK
2018, Graduate Show, University of Brighton, School of Art, Brighton, UK
2017, Land and Sea, Barbican House Museum, Lewes, UK
2017, Inbetween, Grand Parade, Brighton, UK
2015, UAL Camberwell Summer Show, Camberwell University, London, UK
ART FAIRS
2024, Zona Maco, Centro Citibanamex, Mexico City
2022, Start Art Fair, Galleria Foret, Seoul, South Korea
2022, One Art Taipei, The Sherwood Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan
2021, Art Taipei, Taipei World Trade Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
2020, Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize Shortlist, Ashurst, London, UK
SELECTED PRESS/PUBLICATIONS
2025, Enfold, unfurl, publication by Freelands Foundation
2025, Stranger Skies review, Corridor8, by Laura Biddle
2025, Essay, The thingness of being: Pippa El-Kadhi Brown’s otherworlds, by Katy Evans
2024, Essay, A world inside out: new thresholds in Pippa El-Kadhi Brown’s work, by Lydia Earthy
2024, Vogue Arabia, print + online
2024, Ghost Party, by Eloise Hendy
2023, These familiar things, by Noah Swiney, Imagination rooms
2023, The ripple effect, Liepaja Museum, RZ Collection
2023, In the studio with Pippa El-Kadhi Brown, Where’s The Frame, by Lisa Modiano
2023, Angels, ghosts, Tom and Jerry, Plinth, by Eloise Hendy
2023, Other voices, other rooms, by John Slice, Walls who whisper, Lychee One
AWARDS
2024, Freelands Foundation Fellowship Award
2023, Bloomberg New Contemporaries Finalist
2022, Global Design Graduate Award Finalist
2022, Chadwell Award Finalist
2020, Ashurst Emerging Artist Prize
2020, The Ali H. Alkazzi Scholarship Award, Royal College of Art
2019, Art Pegazs Taste of Life Award
2019, Creekside Graduate Studio Award
2018, Platform Graduate Award Finalist
2018, Rising Talent Award Finalist
RESIDENCIES
2025, Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy
2025, Tabari Artspace, La Serena, Tuscany, Italy
2024-5, Freelands Foundation Fellowship Residency at MMU, Manchester, UK
2019, Organhaus Studio Residency, Chongqing, China
2019, Creekside Artists Studio Residency, London, UK
LECTURES
2025, University of Lancashire, guest speaker
2025, Teeside University, guest speaker
2024, Bath Spa University, guest speaker
2024, Manchester School of Art, guest speaker
2022, University of Brighton, guest speaker
2022, Royal College of Art, artist talk
