Maximillian William is pleased to present a new collection of eight soft-pastels on paper by Somaya Critchlow. The works in this presentation show Critchlow’s ongoing exploration of the materiality of pigment, with the medium allowing for a fragmentation and softening of her characteristically alluring and at times uncanny portraits. In these small-scale images, women are shown in gentle interiors or indefinite spaces, their poses and expressions adding to a language that feels at home within the painter’s oeuvre.
Pastels continues a symbolic thread from The Chamber, Critchlow’s solo exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2025. The works in this presentation hold onto the same mixture of suspense and serenity: a sort of active silence that is only possible at the tail-end of an echo. Familiar themes, such as bridal garments, reappear.