Louise Giovanelli returns to White Cube Mason’s Yard with In the Light of False Suns, an exhibition of new paintings exploring the relationship between light, desire. Revisiting recurring subjects from her practice, curtains, hair, female screen idols and the cinematic kiss, Giovanelli examines how familiar images become charged with emotion, sensuality and psychological intensity. And it feels very David Lynch.

The exhibition takes its title from parhelia, or ‘false suns’, an atmospheric phenomenon in which sunlight refracted through ice crystals produces luminous spots on either side of the sun. For Giovanelli, these secondary sources of light offer a metaphor for the artificial illumination of cinema, theatrical spectacle and religious imagery. As she describes them, they are ‘companions of light rather than its origin’.

In three new paintings, female faces with closed eyes and parted lips appear against theatrically illuminated curtains, bringing together motifs previously explored separately in her work. As Giovanelli observes, ‘the curtain and the female figure charge one another’, each acquiring something of the other’s glamour, sensuality and theatrical promise.

A large-scale painting of a meat carcass introduces an unexpected subject into her practice. Through her delicate, luminous handling of paint, the textures of flesh and fat evoke seascapes and celestial skies too.

In the Light of False Suns runs from 20 November 2026 to 16 January 2027 at White Cube Mason’s Yard, London.

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Image: Ad Astra, 2026