Brighton Beach House

The ambitious art collection, overseen by Kate Bryan, Global Director of Art for Soho House, is formed of two permanent collections: the Brighton Beacon Collection, guest curated by queer art specialist Gemma Rolls-Bentley, and the Local Collection featuring artists born, based or trained in Brighton and its surroundings. The Brighton Beacon Collection comprises of works from an international line-up of LGBTQIA2S+ artists and is a love letter to the area as a historical beacon city for the queer community. 

The Local Collection includes more than 110 works by artists born, based or trained in Brighton and its surroundings. Artists featured are Rachel Whiteread, Dexter Dalwood, Somaya Critchlow, Dee Ferris, Harold Offeh, Magali Reus, Miranda Forrester, David Shrigley, and Aimée Parrott. 

Site-specific commissions include an installation in the reception area by Brighton-born artist, Tania Kovats. She has created a conceptual group portrait of Soho Houses around the world; the work features more than 30 glass vessels, each one containing water drawn from the closest source to each site. For example, Soho House Mumbai’s has been collected from Juhu Beach by a local member, Soho House Amsterdam from Westertoegang canal and Babington House from Kilmersdon Brook. David Shrigley designed the curved swimming pool with a banana on its pool floor, and alongside it reads ‘The moment has arrived, the banana is ripe’ as a metaphor for Kemptown.

The Brighton Beacon Collection, curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley, brings together the most relevant and influential queer artists of our time. Their work in this collection, from newly emerging to critically acclaimed contemporary masters, provides a collective response to the notion of a beacon city, to Brighton’s global significance as an LGBTQIA2S+ haven, and the role that queer hubs have played in each artist’s own practice, their community and wider contemporary culture. Artists include David Hockney, Maggi Hambling, Isaac Julien, Catherine Opie, Elmgreen & Dragset, Prem Sahib, Sunil Gupta, Christina Quarles, Gray Wielebinski, and Sin Wai Kin. Rolls-Bentley has been at the forefront of contemporary art for over a decade, working passionately to amplify the work of queer artists and provide a platform for art that represents and explores LGBTQIA2S+ identity. She is chief curator at Avant Arte and co-chairs the board of Queercircle, a new charity that aims to support the health and wellbeing of the LGBTQ+ community through arts and culture.