Pilotus, 2025, by Sara Berman. As part of Glyndebourne Festival 2026, the artist presents a solo exhibition, ‘Entanglements: Sara Berman on Billy Budd’, responding to Michael Grandage’s production of Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd.

The self-portraits of artist and former fashion designer Sara Berman explore the politics of presentation and performance alongside an attention to fabric worthy of an Old Master. Here, she presents a work as LUX’s artist in residence, and curator Catherine Loewe reflects on the artist’s feminist practice

“‘Pilotus’, from the Latin ‘to steer’ or ‘steersman’. This piece dances between genres, abstracting the figurative notion of both portraiture and paint. As character and performance play a subversive role, so do the formal concerns of painting itself, with patterning and abstract forms coalescing into a figurative notion” Sara Berman, London.

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“Sara Berman’s captivating work catechises multiple characters, often through the use of costume, with the form of the mischievous Harlequin from commedia dell’arte as underlying archetype. Unravelling the constructed nature of role-play, Berman engages herself as both protagonist and muse – a process she refers to as ‘auto-fiction’. Berman is currently working with Glyndebourne as its commissioned artist for the season, placing her practice in dialogue with the world of opera and performance” Catherine Loewe, curator and founder of Loewe Contemporary, London.

www.sarabermanartist.com