Graham Silveria Martin A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep
14 November 2025 – 17 January 2026
‘A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep’ is an exhibition of drawings and paintings by Graham Silveria Martin exploring themes of connection, desire and collective memory, whilst tracing sensibilities across time. Typically working with found imagery, Silveria Martin’s recent work draws predominantly from ‘Blueboy’, a men’s magazine published from 1974–2007, taking its name from Thomas Gainsborough’s painting, c. 1770.
The Greco-Roman references in these magazines prompted Silveria Martin to explore the V&A’s sculpture collection, responding to marble groups that he felt held a certain queer erotic charge. During these visits he discovered work by Lord Frederic Leighton. Shared sensibilities and coded signifiers in Leighton’s work led him to explore other artists of the period celebrating aestheticist ideals.
The work in the exhibition draws from a variety of sources dating from the 16th century to the present day, from gay magazines published in the late 1970s, Victorian and Modernist influences in the work of Leighton, Simeon Solomon and Duncan Grant, to the classical sculpture of Giambologna and Canova. The exhibition also includes two erotic drawings by Duncan Grant from the 1950s.
The exhibition is titled after a poem by the 19th-century artist Simeon Solomon. Solomon’s artistic career was cut short due to the public scandal and disgrace he faced as a result of his same-sex relationships.