The ‘Opening Night’ Gremlin

The Hour Before the Show

“Just relax, enjoy this, it won’t come again.”

That’s what I was telling myself at 8am.

By 5pm the flowers had arrived, the drinks had been chilled and someone was still adjusting the lights above the largest painting. I had spent the morning answering emails and trying not to think too hard about the opening that night. There is something so bizarre about it all. For better or worse, opening nights have always been psychologically disorienting to me. For months the work exists in private: between studios, sketchbooks, voice notes, airport lounges and rushed conversations. Then suddenly it belongs to a room full of people asking questions I’m not entirely sure I can answer.

By 5:47pm the gallery still smelled faintly of fresh paint and florist buckets. My phone battery was at 12 per cent and three different people had asked if I was excited. Excited didn’t feel like the right word. More like wobbly.

In the morning I had been unusually nervous. My legs felt unsteady and my stomach was turning. Nervous, excited, shy, happy, distracted. Why? The work was done. The paintings were made and hanging on the walls. Only now, writing this, do I realise some of that feeling belonged to an older version of myself. Years of architecture crits, self-producing exhibitions and standing in front of rooms waiting to be judged had taught my body to expect scrutiny. The feeling came and went in waves throughout the day. Exercise helped. Food helped. Prayer helped. Distraction helped. But beneath it all was the same sensation: exposure.

The hour before an opening is perhaps the last private moment an artist has with the work. After that, the paintings begin their own social life. People project themselves onto them, judge them, misunderstand them, perhaps fall in love with them, or never hear about them at all. They photograph them for Instagram and stand silently in front of them. They attach memories, desires and stories that have nothing to do with mine.

Khalas, this isn’t my first rodeo and I’ve learnt the pattern. So I share some wisdom with you. An actor friend once told me that before a film is released there are private screenings, then more screenings, then interviews. By the time the public finally sees it, they’ve already become less attached to the work. So I learnt to do something similar. This time I showed the paintings to a friend first, then family, then the gallery, then online. Small acts of release act as tiny rehearsals for letting go.

Even so, there is always an exchange of energy when in the room. I know I’ll probably wake up tomorrow with what I can only describe as a vulnerability hangover. At the same time, I’m already working on not just the next project but the one after, two exhibitions ahead, the timelines stretching into 2027 and 2028. The temptation is always to move on too quickly, to steamroll straight past the thing I’ve spent months making.

But first, back to the room.

Opening nights feel a little like weddings. Not that I’ve ever had one. But there is something similar in the constant circulation, the endless conversations, the feeling of offering pieces of yourself to dozens of people in succession. I notice small details. A lipstick mark on a glass near a plinth, the light has gone out again. Someone’s aunt accidentally backing too close into a canvas. And my mamma looking a bit lost moments before a guest arrives that I need to speak to. And then, the collector tilting their head.

The tilt. Ugh.

Someone saying, “You must be so proud,” while the beast inside me says, further, more, now, again, go!

Opening nights are strange because they ask artists to become public at the exact moment the work stops belonging entirely to them. The hour beforehand feels deliriously out of time and space. In that stretch between intimacy and visibility, I savour those final thirteen minutes. One last moment with the paintings before the doors open, the room fills with voices, and somebody asks the inevitable question: “What comes next?”

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From The Factory >

A few moments from Between Two Kingdoms, currently on view at Secteur Privé, London.

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Prompts >

JOURNAL
- What will I call my next body of work?
- When was the last time I felt nervous before stepping into the light?

ASK SOMEONE
What’s the last thing you saw in a museum or gallery?

CREATIVE ACT
Find five images of your dream exhibition setup. It could be anything from a travelling punk-skateboard ice cream van, to a mermaid crystal cave on the edge of a cliff.

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Musings >

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
- Aristotle

“I found I could say things with colour and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way.”
- Georgia O’Keeffe

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”
- Michelangelo

“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”
- Robert Henri

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P.S It all started with this sketch. Never forget the power of a small ‘nothing’ sketch one sweet moment.

To the ones making.

With love,

Karimah