239. Dani Trew - Gewgaw

2026
Oil on board
10 x 20 x 5.5 cm

Dani Trew (b. 1991, South Africa; raised in London) explores personal mythologies and notions of femininity through drawing and painting. Influenced by her background as a design historian and curator, as well as her multicultural upbringing, her work combines disparate objects, textiles, fashion references, and architectural details to examine tensions within psychological and narrative spaces. Characterised by intricate detail and a fusion of contemporary fashion with art historical references, her paintings balance stillness with emotional and psychological intensity.

Alongside her artistic practice, Trew studied English Literature at the University of Oxford and History of Design through the RCA/V&A postgraduate programme, before beginning a PhD examining fashion and politics in late 19th-century Britain. She has also worked as an Assistant Curator in the V&A’s Furniture, Textile and Fashion Department, as a Curatorial Researcher for V&A East, and on a number of fashion-related exhibitions. In 2015, she was shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award, and in 2023 completed The Drawing Year postgraduate programme at the Royal Drawing School.

Trew completed The Drawing Year at the Royal Drawing School (2022–2023), following an AHRC Techne-funded PhD at the Centre for Design History, University of Brighton (2021–2022), the RCA/V&A History of Design postgraduate programme (2016–2018), and a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford (2011–2014).

Recent exhibitions include Vela d’Artista (Artist’s Sail) in Venice (2026); To Make Shirts from Anemones at Lyndsey Ingram, London (2024); Transparency at Lyndsey Ingram, London (2024); Best of the Drawing Year 2023 at Christie’s, London (2023); and The Drawing Year End of Year Exhibition at the Royal Drawing School, London (2023). In 2015, she was shortlisted for the BP Portrait Award, exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London, the National Museum of Scotland, and the Ulster Museum, Belfast.

Her work is held in collections including The Royal Collection, the Hannah Rothschild Collection, the Katrin Bellinger Collection, and the Michael Moritz and Harriet Heyman Collection.