Jo Brocklehurst: Nobodies and Somebodies Exhibition at the House of Illustration

Drawing live in fetish clubs, punk squats and on the performance scene of 1970-90s London, Berlin and New York, Jo Brocklehurst’s artwork is a unique record of subculture.

Her figurative paintings from fetish clubs document experiments with sex, androgyny and couture that later inspired the mainstream fashion collections of Jean Paul Gaultier, while her best-known portraits from the 1980s offer a raw, beautiful and female perspective on punk.

Co-curated by her model and muse Isabelle Bricknall, the exhibition also features her drawings of Berlin’s 1990s performing arts scene for the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, alongside clubland-inspired interpretations of Alice Through the Looking Glass.

“This new exhibition shows unseen portraits – many thought lost – of caberet artists, bohemians, new romantics, punks, drag queens and fetish fans… The most inventive extremes of London’s clubland became Brocklehurst’s catwalk.” New York Times

The exhibition runs until 14 May 2017, please go to the House of Illustration website to purchase tickets.

Cost: £7.50, adult ticket