The Tastemaker Edit
At British Art Fair, our Exhibitors bring together an exceptional range of modern and contemporary British art, with works spanning from twentieth century masters to significant contemporary voices.
We asked five influential tastemakers from the worlds of art, design and culture to share the works that caught their eye. From emerging names to established artists, each has selected a personal favourite from the fair, offering a glimpse into the ideas, aesthetics and artists shaping their view of British art right now.
Bettina Prentice
Founder of Prentice Cultural
Bettina Prentice is a London-based independent curator, producer and cultural consultant. Through her company, Prentice Cultural, founded in 2008 in New York, she has advised leading brands, artists and not-for-profits including Tiffany & Co., FENDI, Prada, Alexander McQueen, Bulgari, Google, Noor Riyadh, Tuwaiq Sculpture Symposium, Art Production Fund, Museum of Arts and Design, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art.
From 2018 to 2024, she developed and co-curated Art in Resonance the global art program for five star hotel group Peninsula Hotels, overseeing major site-specific commissions from Paris to Hong Kong. She serves on the Board of Directors of Creative Time in New York and the Advisory Board of The Lunchbox Fund in South Africa. Bettina is founding member of The Artemis Council at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York and a patron of Studio Voltaire and The Line in London.
Bettina is co-curating the forthcoming exhibition “The Soothsayer’s Chorus” at Pink Floyd’s former studio in Islington. The exhibition reclaims the prophetess Cassandra as a polyphonic chorus including Ana Mendieta, Cecilia Vicuńa, Jewel, Judy Chicago, Katie Paterson, Nika Neelova, Veronica Ryan OBE RA, Virginia Overton and other women artists.
David Hockney, The Student: Homage to Picasso, 1973
Presented by Christopher Kingzett
“I know this etching from my days in the Contemporary & Modern Print department at Sotheby’s many years ago. Made the year Picasso died, and printed by the same master printer that the Spanish artist had used for the past 25 years - this print stages an encounter between hero and admirer. Hockney depicts himself as literally sizing himself up against a towering, plinth-mounted Picasso. It is amusing to note that Hockney has ensured the two are of equal height”.
Daniel Preece, Chelsea Bridge, 2026
“I live nearby and in Preece’s hands this stretch of the river feels both instantly familiar and quietly transformed. I’m interested in the way that the bridge's ironwork dissolves into a haze of dusky pink and slate-green reflections. I’m eyeing this one for myself”.
Charu Gandhi
Founder and Director of Elicyon
Charu Gandhi is the founder and director of Elicyon, an international design studio renowned for its sophisticated, highly personalised interiors. Born in Delhi and trained as an architect at London’s Architectural Association, Charu’s approach is shaped by a lifelong appreciation of craft, materiality and the decorative arts. Before founding Elicyon in 2014, she worked at Allies & Morrison and Candy & Candy Group, contributing to major architectural and residential projects internationally. Today, her practice brings together architecture, art, design and bespoke craftsmanship, collaborating with leading artists, artisans and makers to create distinctive, deeply considered spaces across the UK and internationally.
Charu is an experienced and engaging speaker who enjoys regular participation in key industry panels events including Decorex, London Design Week, Goldsmith’s Fair, HIX London, FT Weekend Festival, Spear’s Wealth Insight Forum, and London Craft Week. Her work has been widely featured in leading interiors and lifestyle press including AD, The Financial Times, Elle Decoration and The Times.
Trevor Bell,
Himalayan Series,
1990.
Acrylic on two shaped canvases (joined),
200 x 207cm
Presented by Fine Art Consultancy
“Scale can completely change the way you experience a piece of art, and so, at 200 x 207 cm this has such presence. I particularly love the shaped canvas and the way it plays with perspective. It becomes more than something you hang on a wall because it interacts with the architecture and brings movement and energy into the room”.
Winifred Nicholson, Storm light on Flowers, 1955. Pastel, crayon, oil and silver paint on card, 31,5 x 42cm
Presented by Crane Kalman Gallery
“This is such a timeless piece, for me, it feels remarkably current despite having been created over 70 years ago. The artist’s visionary eye is a testament to her skill, and that sense of timelessness is something we also seek to achieve within our interiors”.
Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi
Founder and CEO of Banda and Banda Gallery
Edoardo’s work sits at the intersection of architecture, interiors, art and collectible design, with a particular focus on creating highly considered environments in which works from different periods and disciplines can co exist naturally.
Through both Banda’s interiors and Banda Gallery, Edo has developed an approach to collecting centred on materiality, craftsmanship and individual character rather than a single period or aesthetic. Art is considered as an integral part of a home: not simply something placed within an interior, but something that can challenge it, give it identity and evolve alongside the people living there.
Tracey Emin, The Wedding, 2019. Bronze, 11 x 10 x 5cm
Presented by Tanya Baxter Contemporary
“Emin occupies such an important place within contemporary British art, and I liked the idea of representing that generation through sculpture rather than one of the works on paper or neon with which she is often associated. For me, the attraction is very much in the object itself. Bronze carries such a long history within sculpture, ye there the surface feels immediate, irregular and almost instinctive. I love that contrast. Despite being only around eleven centimetres high, it has a surprising physical presence and an extraordinary amount of character. It is exactly the kind of small object that can completely change a table, shelf or room, not because of scale, but because of the strength of its form”.
Pippa El-Kadhi Brown, Rainmaker, 2025. Oil on canvas, 150 x 180cm
Presented by Ed Cross Fine Art
“I wanted the selection to include something very contemporary, and Rainmaker immediately stood out. At 150 x 180 centimetres, it has a real physical presence, but what interested me most was the way the image seems to oscillate between something recognisable and something more abstract. There is an extraordinary amount of gesture and movement in the painting, yet the composition still feels resolved. I like work that continues to reveal itself over time, and this feels like a painting you could live with for years and continue to see differently. I can imagine it working particularly well against the quieter, more tactile materials we often use in our interiors”.
Eleanor Ekserdjian
Artist and Filmmaker
Eleanor’s practice blends moving images with rapid mark-making. This process results in abstract works that blend fluid motion with striking precision, capturing both a sense of calm and dynamic movement. Pepe Karmel, author of Abstract Art: A Global History, defined her work as ‘Poetic, elegant and mysterious — a kinetic, subjective transcription of the world into calligraphy.’
Ekserdjian’s recent solo exhibitions include Simultanea at Artopia Gallery, Milan (2026), and We Are Our Mountains at Messums London, London (2026). Her debut short film Imagined Landscapes was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2025) and at the Socially Relevant Film Festival New York, New York (2026).
John Nash, Landscape Under Snow. Watercolour,
52.5 x 36.5 cm. Presented by Christopher Kingzett
“This Nash watercolour is wonderfully sensitive in colour and line. It has a quiet, pale light that reminds me of the landscape around my studio in West Sussex.”
Frank Auerbach, Study for from the Studios, 1986. Black ink and coloured crayon on paper.
Presented by Tanya Baxter Contemporary
“The energy and immediacy in this Auerbach ink and crayon sketch is so exciting and dynamic - you can feel the speed in the drawing. The language of mark-making that he created is particularly inspiring to me in my work”.
Mattia Pozzoni
Art Advisor and Founder of MEGA Art Fair
Over the past fifteen years, Mattia has worked across the international art market, advising private collectors, cultural projects and hospitality clients on the development of art collections, cultural strategies and bespoke art experiences.
His projects and collaborations include American Express Centurion, Fulham Pier, Rocco Forte Hotels and Boscolo. Alongside his advisory practice, he lectures on the contemporary art market at IESA (Paris) and NABA (Milano), Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti. At IESA, he also led the MA in Contemporary Art Markets, validated by the University of Warwick.
Dia al-Azzawi, Man in Yellow Field, 2020-2021.
Acrylic on canvas, 210 x 170cm.
Presented by Richard Saltoun Gallery
“I had Dia al-Azzawi firmly in mind after encountering his work at the 2024 Venice Biennale. I am drawn to the way myth, memory, archaeology and politics coexist within his visual language, without ever reducing the work to a single reading. Having lived and worked in London since 1976, his presence here also opens up the idea of British art: less as a question of birthplace or fixed identity than as the product of the different histories and perspectives that have met and evolved in Britain over the past half-century”.
L.S. Lowry, Housing and Fencing, c. 1920. Pastel on paper, 24.6 x 54 cm
Presented by Crane Kalman Gallery
“Can one really make a British Art Fair selection without a Lowry? I certainly couldn’t. Beyond the familiarity of his imagery, what still strikes me is how strange and psychologically precise his world can be. An apparently ordinary scene becomes theatre: social and solitary, humorous and melancholic at the same time”.