Where does inspiration come from? Is it some magical spark? A muse that strikes out of the ether? A gift from the heavens? Nah, turns out it’s just a postcard Blu Tacked onto a wall. And a new exhibition at Marylebone gallery Incubator is setting out to prove it. Notes from the Studio is a group exhibition, not of art, but of the things that inspire the art. Forty-five visual artists, writers, musicians and designers – including Tracey Emin, British-Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri, and REM frontman Michael Stipe – each submitted a single item they had pinned, taped or whacked on the wall of their studio or workspace. The result is a gallery filled with images, objects, curiosities and ephemera that shape the way these creative minds think – these are the sparks, the muses, the gifts from the heavens that inspire art.
“The idea originated from a conversation I had with artist Mary Stephenson, who is featured in this show,” Angelica Jopling, the gallery’s director (and the daughter of Jay Jopling, founder of mega-gallery White Cube), tells Broadsheet. “But I’ve always been fascinated by artists’ studios, as many people are. A studio is the locus for ideas and experimentation that allows art to break forth.”
Most of us don’t get to actually see into artists’ studios; they’re closed-off spaces, private places that artists sequester themselves away in. But this show acts as a window into those worlds. “We are so accustomed to seeing the finished product – be it an artwork, an album, a runway collection or a novel – we rarely get to see what brought these artists there,” says Jopling. “It’s like lifting the curtain of the Wizard of Oz and finding the precious, and often mystical, seed of an idea.”
The walls of the gallery are covered in images and objects, all taped or tacked to the wall just like they were in the artists’ studios. There’s a single dragonfly wing from Fleur Dempsey; two beer cans flattened and smashed together from Christian Marclay; images of hair, eyes and rivers from Mona Hatoum; a scrawled painting on paper from Tracey Emin; a black and white photo of a young man at a magazine kiosk from acclaimed British filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson (Jopling’s mother). “Whether it’s Tracey or an emerging artist, sketches, notes and talismans show a common language that underpins any practice of experimentation, curiosity, and hope,” says Jopling. “These artefacts reveal the layered thinking that usually stays hidden, the sketches, the colour swatches, the references, the dead ends and breakthroughs that eventually shape a finished work.”
“I think viewers can gain a real sense of how intuitive, messy and, above all, deeply human the artist’s process is.”
Notes From The Studio runs at Incubator, 2 Chiltern St, W1U 7PR, until January 31, 2026.
