ASHMOLEAN NOW: DAPHNE WRIGHT

DEEP-ROOTED THINGS

FREE EXHIBITION

13 Jun 2025 – 8 Feb 2026

Gallery 8

Admission is FREE

The fourth in the Ashmolean NOW exhibition series, where contemporary artists are invited to create new work inspired by the Ashmolean’s historical collections.

The fourth instalment of our Ashmolean Now series focuses on sculptures by Irish artist Daphne Wright.

Conceived in partnership with the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, the exhibition will feature several new works in plaster which consider the tradition of still lifes and respond to the sculptures in our Cast Gallery.

Daphne Wright works in unfired clay and jesmonite and has long experimented with casting. 

Central to the exhibition will be Sons and Couch, a life-size sculptural artwork cast in jesmonite of the artist’s sons. They have featured in their mother’s moving and personal work since an early age. This new piece is currently a work in progress. Also on display will be Fridge Still Life (2021), which has not been on public display previously, alongside other works by Wright and objects from the Ashmolean's own collection.

 

Irish artist Daphne Wright's Fridge a cast clay sculpture showing the inside of a fridge and featuring a vase of dying flowers on the top

Fridge Still Life, Daphne Wright, 2021, unfired clay & mixed media © Daphne Wright, courtesy Frith Street Gallery, London. Photo credit: Ellie Atkins / Ashmolean

 

Watch this space for more details coming soon.

About Ashmolean NOW

For this series of exhibitions in Gallery 8, each artist explores different areas of the Museum’s broad collections from the artists' individual perspectives. The first summer Ashmolean NOW 2023–24 exhibition showed work by Flora Yukhnovich and Daniel Crews-Chubb, followed by Pio Abad in February 2024. Currently on show is Bettina von Zwehl until spring 2025, followed by Daphne Wright opening in June 2025.