Hugo Winder-Lind
Hugo Winder-Lind paints sheep, horses and people caught in situations they don’t appear to understand. Animals gather beneath livid skies. Figures tumble, process or wait for judgement. In Crowd of the Damned, after the Pamplona Bible (2025), a crush of bodies fills a canvas seven feet high and eight feet wide. The source is medieval, but the anxiety is perfectly current.
Born in Barnet in 1992, Winder-Lind was raised in South Mimms, Hertfordshire, and now lives and works in Brighton. His mother was a dancer; his father worked in stained glass and taught him some of its methods. An Anglican childhood supplied churches, ritual and biblical imagery. The countryside supplied livestock, woods and the persistent suspicion that human beings aren’t necessarily the main event.
His paintings are made with oil, charcoal, pastel, acrylic and raw pigment on canvas, linen, paper or panel. He stains, scrapes and layers his surfaces, allowing forms to emerge without polishing away their awkwardness. Repeated sheep become a congregation or a pattern; a horse can be an animal, an omen or simply a weight moving through grass. The work draws on doom paintings, folklore, archaeology and animist thought, but avoids the lacquered finish of borrowed mythology. These references have been handled, muddied and put to work.
His colour is similarly blunt and physical: soot black, chalky blue, bruised green and sudden passages of orange or red. Space often collapses, leaving animals stacked like heraldic devices and skies pressing directly against the ground below.
Winder-Lind also makes sculpture, photographs, films, performances and artist books. For Duellers (2023), he photographed figures, including himself, in open landscapes, caught somewhere between fighting, dancing and falling over. During a 2025 residency at Cold Paradise on the Applecross peninsula, he built temporary ‘ancestor houses’ from materials found nearby. Some were the size of small shrines; others could be crawled into. They contained notes, paintings and organic offerings and left no permanent mark. The residency produced paintings, monotypes and Clerestory Window, a short film made with Nina Winder-Lind.
He completed a foundation course at Oaklands College and briefly attended Cambridge School of Art before leaving. His subsequent education has been practical and self-directed. Exhibitions have included The Bookend, Brighton (2022), Troze Gallery, Penzance (2023), Faraway House, Sennen (2024), The Language of Birds at General Assembly, London (2025), Ancestor Houses at Cold Paradise, Shieldaig (2025) and a presentation of monotypes and performance at Atemporal, Berlin (2026).
Clouds of Limitless and Expanding Joy at Isabel Sullivan Gallery, New York, in 2026 was his first solo exhibition in the United States. Its twelve paintings ranged from compact panels to enveloping canvases. The larger scale didn’t make the work grander. It exposed how unruly it already was
CV
Solo Exhibitions
2026
140 Knights in Silver Armour, Robbie von Kampen, London, UK
I Fall and Rise With the Falling and Rising Bodies, Hometown Journal, Berlin, Germany
Clouds Of Limitless And Expanding Joy. Isabel Sullivan Gallery, New York, USA
2025
Ancestor Houses, Cold Paradise, Highlands, Scotland, UK
One For the Angels, When the Sky Was Opened, Nord Books, Stockholm, Sweden
2024
Pink Granite Cliffs, Faraway House, Sennen, UK
2023
The Telepathic Field. Troze Gallery, Penzance, UK
2022
Chaos, Discipline and the Institution of practice. The Bookend, Brighton, UK
2020
A Lovesong for a Desolate Landscape. Fishing Quarter Museum, Brighton, UK
Group Exhibitions
2026
Platform Spotlight, Platform, USA
If it's Not Magic, It's Not Real. Tinman Art, Hampshire, UK
Unbridled: Horsin’ Around. Latitude Gallery, New York, USA
2025
ONNI, Winter Exhibition. Isabel Sullivan Gallery x Lyle Gallery, New York, USA
The Fruiting Body, Brighton Open Houses, Brighton, UK
The Living Mountain, Partnership Editions, Online Exhibition, UK
Cold Paradise Summer Selection, Shieldaig, Scotland, UK
The Infinite House, Brighton Open Houses, Brighton, UK
Floralia: Neo Ancients, Rattle and Brash residency space, Stroud, UK
The Language of Birds, (Duo show with Hattie Landells) General Assembly London, UK
Paradise lost, Art on a postcard auction, London, UK
As it was, Auto Amor, Residency Group Show, Kent, UK
Process, Partnership Editions, Online exhibition, London UK
Truth, like love and sleep, resents approaches that are too intense, Centrespace Gallery, Bristol, UK
2024
Salt Pony, The Bookend, with Vivianna Almas. Brighton, UK
Platform November selection, Platformart.com USA
The Seven Lamps, Curated by Juliet Wilson, Hypha Studios, London UK
Maskas, British Council, Skopje, North Macedonia
Veins of Dreams, Independent, London, UK
Harvest Moon, Tinman Art, Bere Mill, Hampshire, UK
Summer Selection, General Assembly London UK
Adelaide Salon Launch, Adelaide Salon, Brighton UK
Taste, OHSH x Wonzimer, Wonzimer Gallery Los Angeles, USA
Occult Surge, Surge Chapter, Moosey Gallery, London, UK
Sennen Summer Fayre, Faraway house, Sennen Cornwall UK
Buried, OHSH Projects, London, UK
I Lost Something in the Hills, Liliya Gallery, London, UK
Show Pony, Curated by Kelly Wu, Islington Arts Factory, London, UK
2023
Oversounds, Roseberry Road Studios, Bath UK
Crawl Space, Crypt Gallery, London UK
Works on paper, Troze gallery, UK
Sennen Summer Fayre, Faraway house, Sennen Cornwall UK
The Steps - Opening, Troze Gallery, Cornwall, UK
2022
Troze takeover No.2, Temporary exhibition space, Cornwall, UK
Troze takeover, Jupiter Gallery, Cornwall, UK
Stoned, The Fayre, Sennen, UK
Troze Presents, The workshop, Cornwall UK
Consideration, Improvisation, Surrounded by Earth, Brighton Earthship, UK.
2021
The Sights and Sounds Club., Brighton UK
2020
A Lovesong for a desolate landscape. Fishing Quarter Gallery, Brighton UK
2019
A Pile of Devil 's Food Cake. De Liceiras 18, Porto, Portugal
Residencies
2025
As it was, Auto Amor residency group show, Kent, UK
Winter Residency, Cold Paradise Projects, Scotland ,UK
2024
The Fayre, Sennen ,Cornwall ,UK
2023
The Telepathic Field, Troze Gallery, Penzance, Cornwall, UK
2022
Consideration, Improvisation, Surrounded by Earth, Brighton Earthship, UK
2019
A Pile of Devil 's Food Cake, De Liceiras 18, Porto, Portugal
Videography - Director/Producer
2025
Rivers Run Red, Short film/music video
2025
Solus, short film, Co Directed with Viviana Almas, Displayed in Brighton 2024
2023
My Name is the Animal (Unreleased) Short Film, Displayed alongside exhibition. The Telepathic Field. Troze Gallery, Penzance, UK
2021
A Spiritual Crime, Music Video - Short Film, Created in Collaboration with Pete Piskov and Hill
2020
Time Love and other games, (Unreleased) Short Film, Screened alongside exhibition - A Lovesong for a Desolate Landscape
Bibliography
2025
Ancestor Houses, Ancient Magic Books
2023
The Telepathic Field. Troze Gallery
2022
Chaos, Discipline and the Institution of practice. Self published with Crowd Funding
2020
A Lovesong for a desolate landscape. Self published