Seen and Unseen is a contemporary figurative art exhibition that explores the themes of race, identity, gender and diversity, nature and climate change, through the outstanding works of Black and mixed heritage artists.

This exhibition was co-curated by the artist Nahem Shoa (b.1968). For over 35 years, Shoa has made identity and the human condition the theme of his artistic expression, pushing to have positive images of Black people represented in exhibitions and gallery collections. In Seen and Unseen, paintings, sculpture and video works from the Ferens’ collection are juxtaposed with loans of work by important black artists to bring new and untold stories to our attention.

Haughton was born in the UK, to parents who had emigrated from the Caribbean in the 1950s as part of the Windrush generation. His mother was from Guyana and his father was from Jamaica. He recalls how “as I child I explored the history of painting through books and visits to the National Gallery where I would copy the paintings I admired the most, work by Gainsborough, Van Dyck, Rembrandt and Caravaggio. It had not escaped my notice that there were hardly any paintings representing Black people as individuals, although I knew there had been sizeable Black communities living throughout Europe for centuries. Rather than put me off, this gap in Britain’s cultural cannon actually served to inspire me”.