The first significant introduction of three emerging artists, all born in the 1990s, to a London audience, The Stories We Tell offers a vivid exploration of memory, identity and family through the distinctive lenses of Tidawhitney Lek, Emil Sands and Khalif Tahir Thompson.

Each artist blends autobiographical elements with imagined and historical narratives, uniting their individual stories through a focus on the human figure. 

The exhibition is accompanied by three new texts by Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, Christopher Riopelle and Debbie Meniru.

  • Tidawhitney Lek

    Tidawhitney Lek, a Cambodian-American artist based in Southern California, draws inspiration from her experience growing up as a first-generation American born to immigrant parents. Lek’s paintings are acts of remembering, documenting scenes of everyday life within a large Asian family. She paints with a sharp eye for detail, conjuring images that explore issues of home and belonging.
  • Tidawhitney Lek, What Are You Looking At? (Triptych), 2025
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    Tidawhitney Lek, What Are You Looking At? (Triptych), 2025

  • ‘In memorialising the mundane, Lek offers visual gestures of recognition to her family and community elders: This is not your motherland, but it is mine. I will translate this place for you; I will make it ours.’

    – Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander

    • Tidawhitney Lek, Around the Corner, 2025
      Tidawhitney Lek, Around the Corner, 2025
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    • Tidawhitney Lek, Cleanse It With Flowers & Water, 2025
      Tidawhitney Lek, Cleanse It With Flowers & Water, 2025
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  • ‘…even something as simple as a silhouetted palm tree in the background reminds us that the landscape of Southern California is not entirely different from that of Southeast Asia.’

    – Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander

  • Tidawhitney Lek, Can I Hold You?, 2025
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    Tidawhitney Lek, Can I Hold You?, 2025

  • About the artist

    Tidawhitney Lek (born 1992) completed her BFA at California State University, Long Beach in 2017. Solo exhibitions include Long Beach...
    Portrait photography: Mason Kuehler
    Tidawhitney Lek (born 1992) completed her BFA at California State University, Long Beach in 2017. Solo exhibitions include Long Beach Museum of Art, California; Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles; and Taymour Grahne Projects, London. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Cantor Arts Center Stanford University, Stanford; ICA Miami; Anat Ebgi, New York; and Ben Brown Fine Arts, London. Institutional collections include the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; and Pérez Art Museum Miami. Lek previously collaborated with Victoria Miro as part of the Miro Presents programme in March 2025.

  • Tidawhitney Lek’s Elsewheres

    By Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander
     
    → Read here

  • Emil Sands

    Emil Sands, a London-born painter and writer currently living in New York, captures the physical idiosyncrasies of the human body in his large-scale canvases. His semi-nude figures, often viewed from behind, roam in expansive landscapes and open beach settings. In his tender portrayal of flesh, Sands explores the complex relationship between viewer and subject – between seeing and being seen. 
  • Emil Sands, Aldo's Dream, 2025
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    Emil Sands, Aldo's Dream, 2025
     
  • Emil Sands, The Search, 2025
    Emil Sands, The Search, 2025
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    ‘Emil Sands has taken on the daunting subject with new energy. In his own words, bather imagery allows him to explore issues of “vulnerability and exposure”.’

    – Christopher Riopelle

    • Emil Sands, Rising Skies, 2025
      Emil Sands, Rising Skies, 2025
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    • Emil Sands, Ripley's Ladder, 2025
      Emil Sands, Ripley's Ladder, 2025
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  • ‘Time is rendered inconsequential here, sequence inadequate, in favour of a far richer engagement with a specific persona. As Sands, like Seurat, knows, our relationships especially with those closest to us evolve, mutate, flow.’

    – Christopher Riopelle

  • About the artist

    Emil Sands (born 1998) completed his Fine Art Foundation at Central Saint Martins, his BA and MPhil in Classics at...
    Portrait photography: Lucas Creighton
    Emil Sands (born 1998) completed his Fine Art Foundation at Central Saint Martins, his BA and MPhil in Classics at the University of Cambridge, followed by the Henry Fellowship at Yale School of Art and Yale Creative Writing. Recent solo exhibitions include Kasmin Gallery, New York; JO-HS, Mexico City; and Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York. Sands will publish his memoir I Am Not Achilles with Scribner (US) and Picador (UK) in 2026, following the publication of a personal essay about growing up with cerebral palsy in The Atlantic in 2023.

  • ‘It was endless bathing’: Cezanne, Emil Sands and a Shared Theme

    By Christopher Riopelle
     
    → Read here

  • Khalif Tahir Thompson

    Khalif Tahir Thompson, born and based in Brooklyn, invites viewers into the everyday lives of his sitters through large, vibrant canvases. Describing his work as portraiture, many of Thompson’s paintings are inspired by family photograph albums. Thompson constructs compositions using this familial cast of characters, layering contemporary and cultural references that encourage us to consider notions of race, home, belonging and – crucially – how identity is shared.
  • Khalif Tahir Thompson, Street Scene in Bed-Stuy, 2025
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    Khalif Tahir Thompson, Street Scene in Bed-Stuy, 2025
  • Khalif Tahir Thompson, Pink Clouds, 2025
    Khalif Tahir Thompson, Pink Clouds, 2025
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    ‘Although rooted in the past, his paintings constantly pull us back to the present moment. It is this push and pull that creates the nostalgia which permeates much of Thompson’s work.’

    – Debbie Meniru

    • Khalif Tahir Thompson, Cashew, 2025
      Khalif Tahir Thompson, Cashew, 2025
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    • Khalif Tahir Thompson, Dean, 2025
      Khalif Tahir Thompson, Dean, 2025
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  • ‘Despite the stillness of Thompson’s figures, the scenes he creates are full of rhythm and repetition… Letters and numbers pattern the work.’

    – Debbie Meniru 

  • About the artist

    Khalif Tahir Thompson (born 1995) completed his BFA at Purchase College, New York and MFA in Painting /Printmaking at Yale...
    Portrait photography: Adam Reich
    Courtesy of Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery
    Khalif Tahir Thompson (born 1995) completed his BFA at Purchase College, New York and MFA in Painting /Printmaking at Yale School of Art. Recent solo exhibitions include the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, North Carolina and Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg, Paris and Dubai. Thompson was selected for Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock Senegal residency, Senegal; the Yaddo Artist Residency, Saratoga Springs, New York; and AAF/Seebacher Fine Arts Prize, Salzburg, Austria. Collections include Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; Pérez Art Museum Miami; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C.
     

  • Khalif Tahir Thompson: Fiction and the Family Archive

    By Debbie Meniru

    → Read here

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