Glenn Brown and Mathew Weir: The Sight of Something

Sigmund Freud observed in ‘Medusa’s Head’ (1922) that childhood terrors can be triggered by ‘the sight of something’. British artists Glenn Brown and Mathew Weir explore the rich ambiguity of this phrase through a selection of drawings, paintings and sculptures in dialogue with objects and artefacts throughout the Freud Museum.

A central theme of this project is mark making, most evident in drawing and the inscription of lines, which is connected to psychoanalysis through the act of uncovering traces of the past. For Freud, memory traces are not exact replicas of past events, but rather reconstructed versions of them. Similarly, mark making can be seen as a process of tracing forgotten or repressed memories, where the act of drawing becomes a means of revealing and grappling with hidden or altered experiences.

Drawing is central to both Brown and Weir’s practices, each creating complex and ambiguous visual spaces that appropriate images from art history. In Brown’s work, images appear and disappear, shifting between multiple perspectives. Faces and body parts merge, becoming both sexualised and visually playful. This resonates closely not only with the psychoanalytic emphasis on the hidden and the sexual, but with Freud’s exploration of dualism and his fascination with two-faced figures. Weir’s work similarly engages with the play of the seen and unseen, as well as the relationship between pain and creativity. Some drawings are made with the artist’s own blood, embodying the tension between life and death drives inherent in the very act of image-making.

Both Brown and Weir invite the viewer to think twice about the image—to revise and reinterpret, to question and rethink what they imagine they see—thus echoing the very process of analysis, which challenges what is often taken for granted or left unexamined. The Sight of Something shows how visual phenomena can evoke the complexities of human experience, drawing us into visual worlds that prompt introspection. These images are never fixed or absolute; like memory, they are constructed, layered, and distorted—shaped as much by absence and forgetting as by what is seen and remembered.

A catalogue will accompany the exhibition with contributions from Darian Leader and Vanessa Boni.

Glenn Brown (born 1966 in Hexham) lives and works in London and Suffolk. He is known for the use of art historical references in his paintings. Brown studied at the Bath School of Art as well as Goldsmith’s College, the latter of which placed him within the Young British Artists. Brown was nominated for the Tate Turner Prize in 2000. His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Centre d’Art Contemporain, France (2000); Serpentine Gallery, London (2004); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2008); Tate Liverpool, England (2009), which travelled to the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin and Ludwig Múzeum, Budapest; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands (2013); Rennie Collection, Vancouver (2013); Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles (2016); Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2016), Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati (2016), Rembrandt House, Amsterdam (2017), Museo Stefano Bardini, Florence (2017), Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, UK (2018), British Museum, London (2018) and Sprengel Museum and Landesmuseum, Hanover, Germany (2023).

In 2022, he and his partner Edgar Laguinia established The Brown Collection in the heart of London’s Marylebone district. This dedicated museum space showcases his own work alongside a curated selection of historical and contemporary artists.

Mathew Weir (born 1977 in Ipswich) lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art, London in 2004 and has exhibited internationally. His most recent exhibitions include: The Beast at the End of the Rope, Knust Kunz, Munich (2022); Miscellaneous fact: a hypothesis in 26 letters, 5 equations and no answer with Abigail Lane (curated by Nicolas Surlapierre and Vincent Lavoie), MAC VAL – Museum of Contemporary Art of Val-de-Marne, Paris (2024); Death and the Devil: The Fascination with Horror (curated by Westrey Page), Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2023) and toured to Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt and Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt; The Teardrop Explodes, Kunsthaus Villa Jauss Oberstdorf, Germany (2023); NATURE MORTE: Contemporary Artists Reinvigorate the Still Life Tradition, Rowe Arts Gallery, University of North Carolina, USA (2022); The Time is Now, Millennium Gallery, Museums Sheffield, UK (2019); FEELING CALLED LOVE. Collection of an Idiot, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany (2019).

Image Credits:
Left: Glenn Brown, We’ll Keep On Dancing Till We Pay the Rent (2022)
Right: Mathew Weir, Mother (2021)