As Phillip Lai’s exhibition RAIN / RUIN comes to an end, Spike Island is thrilled to announce that Untitled (2026), a cast pigmented wax and concrete sculpture commissioned for the exhibition, has been acquired by The Hepworth Wakefield for its permanent collection. The commission and acquisition were made possible with support from Art Fund.
RAIN / RUIN was the most significant institutional presentation of Lai’s work to date, bringing together a new body of sculptural commissions that explored containment, material transformation and the traces of human presence. Across the exhibition, Lai combined industrial materials, sound and subtly altered everyday forms to create an atmosphere that felt at once familiar and disorientating.
The exhibition received widespread critical attention. Writing in Frieze, Amie Corry described the exhibition as “one of the more startling, affective encounters with art I’ve had in some time”, while ArtReview praised Lai’s “densely wrought, weirdly fugitive objects” that “straddle the line between art and the everyday”.
Lai previously exhibited at The Hepworth Wakefield in 2018/19, and the newly acquired work will go on display there in 2027.
RAIN / RUIN at Spike Island was generously supported by the Henry Moore Foundation, Modern Art, Kiang Malingue and the Phillip Lai Commissioning Circle.
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