There are few artists who understood colour as instinctively as Henri Matisse. Now, Lightroom in London, will explore the palette of Matisse through Matisse: Joy, a new immersive production opening in King’s Cross on 27 January 2027.
Following the acclaimed David Hockney: Bigger & Closer, and David Bowie’s presentation, Lightroom will turn its vast 11-metre-high, 360-degree space over to Matisse, surrounding visitors with the colours, shapes and rhythms that defined his extraordinary career. The Dance unfolds in a whirl of movement; Joy of Life becomes an expansive celebration of pleasure and possibility; The Snail reveals the playful geometry of his later work, while the Blue Nudes appear with a serenity that feels almost weightless.
But this is not simply a journey through Matisse’s greatest hits. At its heart is the artist’s lifelong determination to find new ways of seeing, and of making. Over more than six decades, Matisse repeatedly reinvented his visual language, culminating in the paper cut-outs that transformed the possibilities of colour, line and movement. “I am cutting directly into colour,” he said, describing the sensation as being equivalent to “flying”.
The exhibition brings that sense of physical freedom to life on an enormous scale. Alongside intimate photographs of Matisse at work, audiences will encounter a recreation of the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, the extraordinary chapel he designed and decorated late in life. His own words, drawn from diaries, letters, notebooks and journals, provide the voice of the artist himself, offering glimpses into the thoughts and obsessions behind the images.
Yet Matisse: Joy also looks beyond Matisse, asking what his ideas might mean to an artist working today. British-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist and designer Yinka Ilori MBE contributes new work created especially for Lightroom, opening a dialogue across generations. Known for his exuberant use of colour and form, Ilori has been described as the “Architect of Joy”; here, he considers Matisse through a contemporary lens, exploring the shared language of colour, shape, simplicity and happiness, as well as the less visible discipline and labour that lies behind seemingly effortless art.
The result is a meeting of two creative minds separated by generations but connected by a belief in the emotional power of colour. Ilori’s contribution encourages us to look again at Matisse: not simply as the master of decorative beauty, but as an artist who spent his life wrestling with the possibilities of expression.
Directed by Tom Wexler of Journey, Matisse: Joy combines Lightroom’s monumental projections with an original soundtrack and sound design by Pippa Murphy. Music accompanying Ilori’s sections has been selected by composer, sound artist and curator Peter Adjaye.
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Image: The Sheaf (La Gerbe), 1953, by Henri Matisse, akg-images / Fine Art Images / HIP
