'Staging the Ottoman Hospital' exhibition

Staging the Ottoman Hospital

King's College Art Rooms, 13 October to 17 November

Blue Pieta’s solo painting exhibition, Staging the Ottoman Hospital at King's College, explores how sound can transform into vision, drawing on themes of mysticism, performance and medicine. Through a succession of six oil paintings, Pieta creates abstract figurative landscapes in which forms remain metamorphic and dream-like. Converging imagery from Persian miniatures, Renaissance art, and 1960s cinema, Pieta creates what art writer Mahika Gautam calls ‘symbiotic timelines’ that speak to the origins of ritual.

Blue is a multidisciplinary artist working across visual art, performance and writing, having previously studied Art History at King's College, Cambridge. Pieta was dramaturg for the dance work Thikra: Night of Remembering (2025), choreographed by Akram Khan MBE with visual design from Manal Al Dowayan, currently on a world tour. Pieta co-authored the book Autobiography of a Performance (2025), with poet Bhanu Kapil, containing scores, essays and images of their collaborative performances, which is now forthcoming in a new edition. Pieta’s work has been curated by: The Serpentine Galleries, Courtauld Gallery, Britten Pears Arts, Battersea Arts Centre, Royal Court Theatre, Cafe OTO, and The Horse Hospital, among others.

The exhibition opening is Tuesday 13th October, 5 pm- 8:30 pm. Please come to the Front Gate of the College, and the Porters will direct you upon arrival.

The exhibition will be open from 13 October to 17 November. All are welcome but visitors can enter by appointment only. Ahead of your visit, please email Alexander Massouras or Blue Pieta.  

For more information on the artist: https://www.bluepieta.org/