Remember me
Opening in January 2026, sketch will unveil a new artistic intervention by Jonathan Baldock, setting his contemporary sculpture against India Mahdavi’s luminous yellow Gallery. The installation extends the venue’s long-running commitment to treating the restaurant not as a backdrop, but as a living artwork that shifts with each cultural collaboration.
Baldock follows a line of high-calibre collaborators including David Shrigley, Yinka Shonibare CBE RA and Martin Creed. His rehang introduces an idiosyncratic mix of craft and comedy, with a palette that cuts sharply through Mahdavi’s iconic interior: mischievous pops of pink, tactile surfaces and forms that feel at once handmade and theatrically staged.
Since sketch was first conceived in 2002, it has operated like an artist’s sketchbook in public view. The space is designed to stay in motion, changing with each new commission while retaining a recognisable design language. Baldock’s installation builds on that ethos with an immersive presentation across the Gallery restaurant, expanding the room’s sensorial range without losing its poise.
Jonathan Baldock: Maske CXXV, 2024 At the heart of the installation is a display of 84 works from Baldock’s Maske series, encircling the walls. Arranged in a continuous, staggered configuration, the masks create a visual rhythm that keeps the eye moving, turning the room into a kind of procession.
Up close, the surfaces reward attention. Rippling sheets of clay suggest folds of skin, while carved recesses and protruding forms propose eyes, ears and nostrils. Some masks register as clear emotional signals; others hold back, offering only the faintest hint of character. Temperaments shift through Baldock’s ceramic experimentation: coloured clays, painterly glazes and firings at different temperatures produce lustrous finishes, gritty textures and earthen, melancholic tones.
Jonathan Baldock with Kiss from a Rose, 2023. Around the bar, Baldock presents a selection of sculptural works from his Flowers series, with two additional pieces welcoming guests at reception. The works draw from the artist’s personal history, shaped by his relationship with his mother and her garden, and by the emotional landscapes that continue to inform his practice.
Here, flowers bloom into faces and blossoms morph into bodies, landing somewhere between humour and tenderness. The works carry the theatricality and camp sensibility for which Baldock is celebrated, playful and expressive, never quite what they first appear to be.
CocoonsSuspended within the central dome, works from Baldock’s Warm Inside installation introduce an atmospheric focal point. Made through labour-intensive processes of wool spinning, plant dyeing and basket-weaving, the cocoons emphasise the intimate relationship between body, material and craft. Placed overhead, they shift the room’s centre of gravity, drawing attention upward and changing how the Gallery is felt as well as seen.
Art Lover 313 In weaving himself, quite literally, into a thousand-year-old tradition, Baldock positions these forms in a cyclical dialogue between ancient techniques, personal memory and contemporary sculpture. The overall rehang honours Mahdavi’s setting while extending the emotional register of the space, reinforcing sketch’s reputation as one of the first restaurants to treat artistic intervention as a serious, evolving cultural practice.
There is a quiet resonance in Baldock’s working methods. The Maske works are made with no sketchpad at all, typically an intuitive process guided by instinct, while the flowers and cocoons begin life as drawings. That balance of spontaneity and preparation mirrors sketch’s own character: a site where the unplanned and the meticulously conceived sit side by side, evolving in real time like pages in a living sketchbook.
Mourad Mazouz, Owner of sketch, says: “I am pleased to unveil this next chapter of the Gallery, created with Jonathan. At sketch, I have always believed in championing British artists, giving them the space to experiment, provoke and inspire. This new evolution continues that spirit, and I could not be more excited to share it.”
Jonathan Baldock says: “I am grateful for the opportunity to exhibit my work at sketch restaurant, following in the footsteps of artists I admire. I have been a fan of sketch since visiting in my early 20s, and I’m looking forward to being a part of its ongoing legacy.”
©2026 Jonathan Baldock, sketch
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