Michael Armitage, Ngaben, 2023 © Michael Armitage – Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr Ten Ten Award 2023.

Michael Armitage — Ngaben

In his TenTen commission Ngaben, Michael Armitage honours the memory of a close artist-friend in Bali who had recently passed away. The work takes its name from the Balinese Hindu cremation ceremony, a ritual that acknowledges death as part of life’s continuous cycle. At the centre of the lithograph, a pyre burns brightly. Two women embrace as they watch the flames, while nearby a mother quietly breastfeeds her child. At the foot of the image, mask-like faces emerge in a playful, unsettling crowd, and above, a line of figures drawn from early south-east African painting traditions forms a mysterious script.

Armitage is best known for his luminous oil paintings on Lubugo bark cloth, traditionally used by the Baganda people of Uganda to make burial shrouds. In this work, as in much of his practice, he weaves together materials and motifs from different cultures and histories: European painting traditions, African forms and narratives, and his lived experience in East Africa and Bali. The result is a vision where the real and the ethereal meet, and where private grief is carried into a wider reflection on community and continuity.

Reflecting on the commission, Armitage said:

'Culture exists in the most difficult moments of people’s lives, at points at which they grieve and points at which they experience loss; it exists in celebration; it’s a reminder that we’re not here as isolated individuals, we’re here as something greater, and we have a responsibility to each other. For me, that’s really what it is to be an artist… It’s a very hard thing to quantify but it’s entirely necessary.'

-Michael Armitage

Like all TenTen commissions, sales of Ngaben support acquisitions by emerging and under-represented British artists for the Government Art Collection—ensuring the cycle of cultural exchange and renewal continues.

Making the print

Michael Armitage

Michael Armitage (b. 1984, Nairobi) grew up in Kenya with a Yorkshire father and Kikuyu mother before moving to London at 16. He studied at the Slade School of Fine Art (2003–07) and the Royal Academy Schools (2007–10). Working between London, Nairobi, and Bali, Armitage has become one of the most acclaimed painters of his generation. His practice merges European art-historical traditions with East African materials and subjects, creating works that explore politics, folklore, and the poetics of daily life.

He has held major solo exhibitions at Turner Contemporary, Margate (Peace Coma, 2017), and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, USA (MATRIX 263, 2016). His work is represented by White Cube and David Zwirner, and is held in leading international collections.

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Bubble), 2022 © Rachel Whiteread – Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr Ten Ten Award 2022.

Rachel Whiteread — Untitled (Bubble)

In 2012, Rachel Whiteread created a print for London’s Summer Olympics, transforming the iconic Olympic rings into overlapping circles that echoed the marks left by glasses at a party—a celebration of people coming together. A decade later, her TenTen commission Untitled (Bubble) presents a striking contrast. Here, the circles suggest the traces of an invisible virus.

Known for making the unseen visible, Whiteread used these abstract forms to reflect both the microscopic structure of COVID-19 and the reality of lockdown, when human contact was limited to those within our household “bubble.” In denser passages of the print—what she calls “a bubble within a bubble within a bubble”—the idea of celebration lingers. In the overlaps, there is the memory of ecstatic reunions with loved ones after long separations.

The process itself enhances the fragility and uncertainty of the time. Whiteread layered subtle hues of monochrome ink, interspersed with hand-painted watercolour washes that create delicate, translucent effects. The result is both ghostly and luminous, a meditation on how the fabric of daily life holds the accumulated traces of what has come before.

'Rachel Whiteread’s brilliant work is a timely reflection on the challenges we all faced through the pandemic and she is a worthy winner of this year’s Robson Orr TenTen Award.'
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— Stuart Andrew MP (Arts Minister)

'I wanted to make something that looks like the traces of something. It could be the traces of the virus, traces of memories of people who passed away, of happiness, of loneliness.'

— Rachel Whiteread, The Guardian

'The print Untitled (Bubble) is a culmination of thoughts since the beginning of the Covid pandemic … Illustrating what was commonplace to the world’s population, the bringing together of friendships, family and love as well as grief and animosity; But ultimately all sharing a common purpose.'

— Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread (b. 1963, Ilford) is one of Britain’s most significant contemporary sculptors. She studied painting at Brighton Polytechnic before moving to sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in the 1980s. In 1993, she became the first woman to win the Turner Prize with House, a life-sized concrete cast of a terraced house in East London. Though the sculpture was demolished the following year, it sparked intense public debate about memory, loss, and urban change.

Whiteread’s subsequent public commissions have been equally ambitious and resonant: Water Tower (1998) in New York, the Holocaust Memorial (2000) in Vienna, Monument for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square (2001), and Cabin on Governors Island, New York (2016). She continues to live and work in East London, creating sculptures, prints, and drawings that uncover the invisible architecture of memory and everyday life.

Lubaina Himid, Old Boat, New Weather, 2021 © Lubaina Himid – Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr TenTen Award 2021.

Lubaina Himid CBE — Old Boat, New Weather

Lubaina Himid’s TenTen commission Old Boat, New Weather presents a collaged vessel—part ship, part shack—floating in a European harbour. It draws together motifs that recur throughout her practice: architecture, memory, women, slavery, and imperial trade.

On the ship’s deck sits a barn-like structure inspired by her visit to the crumbling homes of freed slaves in Carolina, USA. At once fragile and monumental, the form recalls an ark—a biblical emblem of refuge. As Himid explains, “The whole of history is in the harbour – but we know that this story will set sail.” The work captures the tension between stalling history and anticipating a future marked by climate-driven displacement.

The print’s sky is layered with crossing colours derived from collage, produced in collaboration with printmaker Magda Stawarska-Beavan and influenced by the bold aesthetics of 1960s Polish theatre posters. Pattern has always been central to Himid’s art—shaped in part by her mother, a textile designer, who often took her to the Victoria and Albert Museum as a child.

Old Boat, New Weather extends the narrative Himid began in 2019 with her sculptural work Old Boat, New Money, created during her residency at Porthmeor Studios, St Ives—a space once occupied by Ben Nicholson. Both works reflect her ongoing exploration of the sea as a site of trade, displacement, and cultural exchange.

'Himid’s commission, Old Boat, New Weather, juxtaposes safety and danger, architecture and ships, slavery and imperial trade—with an ark symbolising a place of refuge.'

— The Art Newspaper

“Himid said the image offered ‘a chance to hold history back’ as climate change threatens mass displacements reminiscent of the slave trade.”
— Ocula Magazine

Lubaina Himid CBE

Lubaina Himid CBE (b. 1954, Zanzibar) is a Turner Prize–winning artist and cultural activist whose work foregrounds the overlooked histories of the African diaspora. She studied Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Art before completing an MA in Cultural History at the Royal College of Art. Emerging as a key figure in the Black British arts movement of the 1980s, she has since become one of the UK’s most influential contemporary artists.

Himid’s practice spans painting, print, installation, and sound, often incorporating pattern and colour as carriers of memory and meaning. Her work has been shown internationally, with major solo exhibitions at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, and is held in significant collections worldwide. She was appointed CBE in 2018 for services to art and continues to live and work in Preston, UK, where she is Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire.

Yinka Shonibare CBE, The Hibiscus and the Rose, 2020 ©  Yinka Shonibare – Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr TenTen Award 2020

Yinka Shonibare CBE — The Hibiscus and the Rose

Yinka Shonibare CBE was awarded the Robson Orr TenTen Award in 2020, with his new commission unveiled at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office in London. His print, Hibiscus and the Rose, brings together two vivid blooms, each carrying layers of cultural symbolism.
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The hibiscus, common across the warmer climates of the Commonwealth, recalls Shonibare’s Nigerian childhood, when he would pick its nectar to eat. The rose, England’s national flower, anchors the image in his British identity. Set side by side, the flowers speak to cultural exchange, colonial histories, and the entwined legacies of Britain and its former colonies. As Shonibare has said, “Hibiscus and the Rose is an expression of cultural exchange between Britain and the rest of the world.”

The work continues Shonibare’s exploration of identity, hybridity, and global interconnectedness, here made resonant by his use of Dutch wax fabric patterns—his hallmark material, itself a textile of entangled histories, travelling from Indonesian design to Dutch industrial production before being embraced in West Africa as a symbol of independence and identity. Conscious that the prints would hang in UK government buildings worldwide, Shonibare created an image at once deeply personal and universally symbolic.

Hibiscus and the Rose is an expression of cultural exchange between Britain and the rest of the world. The hibiscus is a genus of numerous species of herbs, shrubs, and trees in the mallow family (Malvaceae) widely found in many of the warmer temperate Commonwealth countries. The rose is the national flower of England and has a long tradition within English symbolism. An exploration of Britain’s colonial past and its current relationship with its former colonies is symbolised through the Hibiscus and the Rose.

— Yinka Shonibare CBE

Yinka Shonibare CBE

Yinka Shonibare CBE (b. 1962, London) moved with his family to Lagos, Nigeria, at the age of three before returning to London to study Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art (now Central Saint Martins) and later at Goldsmiths College, where he earned his MFA.His work spans painting, sculpture, photography, film, and installation, consistently interrogating issues of race, class, history, and cultural identity. Shonibare came to international prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s with his headless mannequins dressed in elaborate European costumes made from Dutch wax batik fabric—a textile whose global history reflects the entangled politics of trade and identity.He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2004 and commissioned by Okwui Enwezor for Documenta 11 in 2002, where his celebrated installation Gallantry and Criminal Conversation brought his work to a global stage. In 2010, his first major public commission, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, occupied Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, its sails fashioned from brightly patterned Dutch wax fabric; a maquette of the work is now in the Government Art Collection.Shonibare has exhibited at the Venice Biennale and in leading museums worldwide. A Royal Academician since 2013, he was awarded the decoration of CBE in 2019 for his services to art.

Tacita Dean, Foreign Policy, 2019 © Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr Ten Ten Award 2019

Tacita Dean — Foreign Policy

British artist Tacita Dean was awarded the Robson Orr TenTen Award in 2019 by the Government Art Collection. Describing herself as a “collector of clouds,” Dean often turns to the sky as both subject and metaphor. For the TenTen commission, she created the screenprint Foreign Policy, a work that reflects the foreboding darkness of turbulent clouds shot through with silver linings of light. The print reimagines her 2016 large-scale chalk-on-blackboard drawing of the same title, which was then on loan to Sir Simon McDonald, the Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Head of HM Diplomatic Service. By translating a fleeting chalk drawing into the permanence of print, Dean captured both the uncertainty of its political moment and the enduring possibility of hope.

'Dean’s cloudscape piece… simultaneously evokes the challenge of capturing the mutability of clouds and an epoch of unprecedented global change and uncertainty.'
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-The Art Newspaper

“For the artist Tacita Dean, it represents fears over a gathering political storm. For the head of the UK’s diplomatic service [Sir Simon McDonald], whose office it dominates, it represents hope that things will be all right.”
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— Mark Brown, The Guardian

Tacita Dean talks about her work Foreign Policy (screenprint edition), after it is unveiled (on the right) in Sir Simon McDonald’s office. The similarly titled large-scale work drawn in chalk on blackboard, can be seen on the wall behind the artist

Tacita Dean

Tacita Dean is one of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary artists, renowned for her pioneering work in film and her dedication to preserving the medium for future generations. Her practice extends across drawing, painting, and photography, often capturing the passing of time, the shifting of light, and the fleeting beauty of clouds and skies.

Emerging in the 1990s as a leading figure of her generation, Dean’s standing was affirmed in 2018 when the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the National Gallery came together to present LANDSCAPE, PORTRAIT, STILL LIFE — three landmark exhibitions devoted to the full scope of her work. She was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1998, awarded the Hugo Boss Prize in 2006, and elected a Royal Academician in 2008. From 2014 to 2015, she served as Artist in Residence at the Getty Research Institute.

Dean lives and works between Los Angeles, Berlin, and the UK.

Hurvin Anderson, Artificial Flowers, 2018 © Hurvin Anderson – Commissioned by the Government Art Collection for The Robson Orr Ten Ten Award 2018

Hurvin Anderson — Artificial Flowers

Still Life with Artificial Flowers is an intricate print that evokes a snapshot of the Hurvin Anderson’s mother’s front room in Birmingham. Anderson graduated from Wimbledon School of Art in 1994 and his distinct painting style is informed by British artists such as Michael Andrews, Sonia Boyce, Eddie Chambers, David Hockney, Leon Kossoff, and Keith Piper. The youngest of eight siblings, Anderson was the only child not to be born in Jamaica, instilling an interest in this dual identity that plays throughout his work.

'Art and culture is one of our great calling cards to the world. I am delighted that Hurvin Anderson will be the first of ten artists to take part in this exciting initiative that will support the Government Art Collection’s role in promoting British art on the global stage.'
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– Michael Ellis MP, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Tourism

'Rich with dissonant colours and tactile textures, Anderson’s collage-like paintings explore Black British social spaces in the impressionist café tradition.'

— Eliza Goodpasture, The Guardian

“The paintings of Hurvin Anderson capture an intimate space where black men can share their feelings and be who they want to be.”

— Financial Times

Artist Hurvin Anderson with his print Still Life with Artificial Flowers. The inaugural TenTen print in 2018, Anderson’s work was loaned to Highams Park School in 2019 for Ways of Seeing, the Collection’s partnership project with Waltham Forest London Borough of Culture. © Matt Crossick / PA

For the print commission, Anderson worked with The Print Studio’s Kip Gresham and Alan Grabham to replicate sourced and saved fabrics and wallpapers. The 13 base colours in the print are built up from 15 stencils over 21 layers. The rich use of pattern to flatten and confuse the space references the techniques of Henri Matisse.

The vase shown belongs to Anderson’s mother, a prized possession that travelled with her from Jamaica becoming something of an iconic item. Set against the warm, deep red, flocked wallpaper and intricate lace doilies Anderson’s interest lies in the heavily patterned ‘kitsch’ aesthetic and its nod to ‘pop’ culture, elevating inexpensive everyday items. The reverence of these items are indicators of luxury and comfort, marking the front room as the best room in the house.

Artificial flowers (in a glass vase) are mentioned in Michael McMillan and Stuart Hall’s book, The Front Room: Migrant Aesthetics in the Home as one of the listed ‘top ten’ items found in a West Indian family’s front room. A place of pride and display; the plastic and fabric flowers never wilting in gilt rimmed vases, the scene depicted is both a homage to the aesthetics of the front room and an interior that will be familiar to many second and third generation migrant families.

Hurvin Anderseron

Hurvin Anderson (b. 1965, Birmingham, UK) is a British painter of Jamaican heritage, celebrated for exploring themes of memory, identity, and cultural belonging. Educated at Wimbledon School of Art and the Royal College of Art, Anderson’s practice blends figuration and abstraction, often layering vivid color, pattern, and texture to reflect on his dual experiences of Britain and the Caribbean. His paintings frequently depict communal and social spaces such as barbershops, gardens, and landscapes, drawing attention to their cultural significance within Afro-Caribbean communities.

Anderson’s work has been exhibited internationally, with solo shows at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, among others. He was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2017 and elected a Royal Academician in 2023. Today, Anderson is recognized as one of the most important voices in contemporary painting, using his art to navigate questions of place, diaspora, and cultural identity while engaging audiences with his richly layered visual language
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