Hugh Hayden: Hughmanity – Lisson Gallery

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Lisson Gallery presents Hughmanity, the latest exhibition by acclaimed American artist Hugh Hayden, marking his first return to London since 2020. Known for transforming everyday cultural symbols into charged allegories of community, rupture, and belief, Hayden here expands his sculptural language with a striking new body of work.

At the centre of the exhibition is The Last Supper (2025), a dining table engulfed in flames and encircled by 13 bronze skillets embedded with African masks, invoking themes of communion, absence, and diaspora. Alongside, The Good Samaritan (2025)—a lifeboat lined with thorns—offers a potent metaphor for refuge, danger, and the fragile hope of survival.

Elsewhere, Hayden reimagines the American flag with carved timber rattlesnakes, erasers, and cigarettes, collapsing patriotism into critique. A thorn-lined blazer and bark-clad children’s garments further interrogate the fraught relationship between assimilation, status, and sacrifice.

Meticulously crafted from trees through processes of felling, milling, carving and laminating, these works layer Biblical allegory with contemporary commentary, extending Hayden’s exploration of congregation, passage, and belief. Hughmanity reflects the artist’s ability to transform familiar forms into profound meditations on identity, community, and survival in an age of fracture.

Find out more here.