Florence Reekie’s The Pleasure of Your Company exhibition is on at RSA House from 9 December 2025 to 2 February 2026 in the Queen Elizabeth II Room.
Join us for the opening of Florence Reekie’s latest exhibition, The Pleasure of Your Company. Works for this exhibition were created specifically for the House in conversation with the Royal Society of Arts’ history and architecture.
Florence Reekie (b.1991) is a figurative oil painter from Scotland. Expectation, subversion, and decadence are essential themes in Reekie’s work. Her paintings are often contemporary scenes drawing upon classical impressions and techniques. She is interested in developing ideas around perception, iconography and coding within compositions while experimenting with the materiality of paint.
Historically, painters have used drapery to bring being and movement into compositions; by using material and only alluding to human interaction, Florence can deal with complex themes in her work. An interest in drapery, not merely as staging for the subject, helps her navigate her pieces. Fabric is often overlooked in both paintings and day-to-day life; simple, crumpled laundry highlighted in paint suddenly takes on a new resonance.
In her work to date, she explores tropes of identity, drawing on ideas of vanity and on how we present authentically. This often leads to historical comparisons, trends, and ways we attempt to assimilate into society. She looks at the concept of beauty ‘secrets’, the trappings of the ways we try to make ourselves more desirable or construct our identity, and the armour we choose to do so.
To view the exhibition after the opening, please email laure.barthelemy@rsa.org.uk to confirm visiting times.
