Firenze Lai's first exhibition in Britain, new paintings made in her London studio, arrived at White Cube's Mason's Yard as Frieze week opened.
White Cube previewed North and True North, the first exhibition in Britain by the painter Firenze Lai, at White Cube Mason’s Yard in St James’s on Tuesday 13 October 2026. The preview fell on the opening day of Frieze week.
Lai was born in Hong Kong in 1984 and has spent two decades painting the psychological life of a crowded city. Her figures are compressed into carriages, waiting rooms and stairwells, their bodies bent by the spaces around them.
The work is small in scale. She joined White Cube in July 2025.
The exhibition shows new paintings made in her London studio over the past year, her first sustained period working in a different city. It continues to 14 November.
Mason’s Yard opened in 2006 and is small enough for a show of this kind to be seen whole in one room. White Cube has introduced artists to London since 1993.
The preview opened the show to collectors and curators in town for Frieze, a mile and a half from the studio where the paintings were made.