OOO LA LA: Maggi Hambling & Sarah Lucas | Frankie Rossi Art Projects
The jokey title sets the tone for this exhibition, organised by Frankie Rossi Art Projects and co-hosted on opposite sides of Bury Street, at Hazlitt Holland-Hiibbert and Sadie Coles HQ.
These once-Young British Artists, who made their names in the 80s and 90s, are now well into grande dame status, which explains the self-referential nature of the art on show at both venues.
Both artists have a set style and run profitable variations on that style: Lucas with her semi-sexy, semi-sad bunny sculptures, Hambling with her wavy oil paintings. “On the one hand, it’s about looking at the old things, and on the other, it’s wanting to bring them right back to a state of freshness that has to have something to do with right now,” Lucas concedes, in the show notes.
It’s impossible not to compare the two styles when they’re right next to each other in the galleries, but any rivalry between the two is strictly playful. Lucas has produced several “portraits” of Hambling for the show, including a pensive “bunny” in trainers, with a single, piercing blue eye - cyclops style. This is cleverly offset by a dense Hambling landscape, using a similar blow (all pictured below).
These days, reputations assured, both artists live close to each other in rural Suffolk, and are close friends.
On the back wall of Sadie Coles, there’s a vinyl wallpaper photograph of the pair of them in that countryside, looking like ladies of the manor. They could be local magistrates, or mainstays of the parish council.
OOO LA LA: Maggi Hambling & Sarah Lucas is organised by Frankie Rossi Art Projects and is at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert and Sadie Coles HQ (London). 20 November 2025 - 24 January 2026