A fresh UK museum debut

A painter who built her name in commercial galleries is about to get her first full UK museum show, and it opens in Manchester on April 17. Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s new exhibition, *The Practice of Liberation*, runs at the Whitworth until October 18, 2026. (whitworth.manchester.ac.uk) This is not a small-room survey of older work. The Whitworth says the show is “formed entirely of new work” and centers on 14 paintings and six ceramic vessels made for a multi-part installation. (whitworth.manchester.ac.uk) The museum version is bigger than a wall of canvases. Yearwood-Dan designed the installation herself, and composer Alex Gruz made a bespoke score so painting, ceramics, and sound land as one environment rather than three separate mediums. (whitworth.manchester.ac.uk) Yearwood-Dan was born in London in 1994 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine art painting from the University of Brighton in 2016. Her own curriculum vitae shows solo exhibitions in London and New York before this museum commission arrived. (michaelayearwood-dan.com) Her work usually does not give you a single scene or portrait to decode. Hauser & Wirth, which represents her, says she builds paintings, ceramics, murals, and sound installations around Blackness, queerness, femininity, healing rituals, and joy. (hauserwirth.com) That helps explain why the Whitworth is framing this show as a space as much as an exhibition. Its description says the installation draws together painting, drawing, ceramics, furniture, and sound to create a contemplative, multi-sensory environment. (townereastbourne.org.uk) The title points to a sharper edge than the lush surfaces suggest. The Whitworth says the installation uses the aesthetics and symbolism of the Catholic church to examine colonialism and institutional religion through Yearwood-Dan’s own memory and experience. (documents.manchester.ac.uk) Inside the paintings, she also threads in language. The Whitworth says the works use abstraction while incorporating fragments of diaristic writing, along with adapted and borrowed texts and lyrics. (whitworth.manchester.ac.uk) The timing matters too. In 2024, Hauser & Wirth announced representation for Yearwood-Dan, and *ARTnews* said the move made her one of the youngest artists on the gallery’s roster. (artnews.com) So this Manchester opening is a different kind of test. A commercial gallery can launch a fast-rising painter, but a museum show asks whether the work can hold a room, a soundtrack, a set of objects, and six months of public attention. (whitworth.manchester.ac.uk) The Guardian’s weekly art roundup put Yearwood-Dan’s show alongside other standout openings on April 10, 2026, a week before the Whitworth opening night. That means her first UK museum exhibition is arriving not as a quiet milestone, but as one of the country’s most watched new shows of the week. (theguardian.com)