Last updated: 10 May 2026
By Tristan · Arts, exhibitions and creative culture
This is an opinion piece. Views expressed are the author's own and do not constitute professional advice. This post contains a small number of affiliate links in the related-content section at the bottom, none of which influence the review itself.
Cool Factor: 5/5 Ice cold
The Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery is, hands down, the warmest, wittiest, most quietly furious thing I have walked into in London this year. It is also posthumous, so going in I was a bit nervous. I needn't have been. Aroma Venus is exactly the kind of glamorous, slippery, unapologetic exhibition Milly would have hung herself, and it left me beaming and slightly teary on Farringdon Road. If you have a free afternoon before 23 May 2026, just go.
First impressions: Aroma Venus on Farringdon Road
Amanda Wilkinson Gallery sits on the first floor of 47 Farringdon Road, just up the street from Farringdon station, and you have to climb a slightly anonymous staircase to find it. That is, frankly, a perfect prelude. You go up expecting an EC1 white cube and instead arrive at a room that feels like someone's gloriously weird Mediterranean living room, hijacked for a paint-streaked hen do. Bodies recline. Colours hum. Somehow, there is the suggestion of factor 30 in the air.
I went on a Saturday, the only weekend day the gallery is open, and the room was busy with a mix of tutors, a few familiar Royal College of Art faces and a couple of older women clearly making a pilgrimage. That felt right. Above all, Milly Thompson Aroma Venus is a room for grown women who refuse to disappear, and the audience knew it.
Who was Milly Thompson?
For anyone newer to her, here is the short version. Milly Thompson (1964 to 2022) was a British painter, sculptor, video artist, writer and teacher. She trained at Camberwell and Goldsmiths. From 1994 to 2003 she was a member of the now-legendary London collective BANK, the only woman in a group that staged shows like Cocaine Orgasm, Sewage Lust and FUCK OFF in East London warehouses, gleefully ridiculing the late-1990s art world.
After BANK dissolved, Milly built a solo career that was patient, prolific and pointed. She painted, made sculpture, wrote manifestoes, designed perfumes and shot videos. In addition to that, she taught for over two decades, on the MFA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths and in the Painting department at the Royal College of Art. Her work is held by Tate, the British Council, MoMA, Printed Matter, the British Library and the Government Art Collection. Her largest retrospective to date, My Body Temperature is Feeling Good at Goldsmiths CCA, ran in summer 2025 and travels to Chapter, Cardiff and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead during 2026.
Why the show is called Aroma Venus
The title is borrowed from her own back catalogue. In 2009, Milly made a short film called Aroma Venus for her solo show Savoir Faire at Peer. The film weaves dialogue from Daphne du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek with Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea over a swirling, faux-Caribbean soundscape, splicing two breathy romance novels into one luxurious, slightly sinister daydream. As a title for this current Amanda Wilkinson outing, it is perfect. Milly Thompson Aroma Venus the exhibition smells of Ambre Solaire, pulpy paperbacks and, faintly, of money. Then, very politely, it asks you what you think you are doing about that.
The paintings: women at leisure, defiantly so
The bulk of Aroma Venus is paintings, dating roughly from 2016 to 2022. They follow Milly's signature mode, which is the middle-aged woman at leisure. Bodies on beaches. Bodies under hats. Bodies cradling oranges, glasses of rosé and a paperback. Crucially, none of these women look back at you to invite you in. Instead, they are all doing their own thing.
What makes the paintings so good is the brushwork, which is wet, loose and deliberately a bit rude. Tummies are not flattened. Cellulite is not airbrushed. A friend's slightly sunburnt collarbone gets a streak of cadmium that is closer to caricature than to flattery. Yet the cumulative effect is dignified, even tender. As Milly herself put it in 2021, and the line is on the wall as you walk in, "Pleasure is a very interesting political place to reside in." She meant it. Aroma Venus is full of women residing there, on towels, with snacks.
It is also worth pausing on her 2016 manifesto I Choose Painting, where she wrote candidly about the discomfort of being a feminist artist who chose oil and board over more obviously political media, and concluded by giving herself permission to think only of "escape, simplicity, sensuality." The paintings in Aroma Venus are, essentially, that permission, signed and dated.
Sculptures, sarongs and a lampoon of luxury
Then there are the non-painting works, and these are where the BANK-era Milly comes barrelling back. The Desert Siren series from 2013 is wall-mounted: cartoonishly shaped torsos, all pneumatic chest and no head, draped in clingy polyester fabric, halfway between a luxury fragrance ad and a travelling fairground. They are funny, then unsettling, then funny again. They mock the visual language of designer perfume commercials while looking, you have to admit, quite beautiful.
Elsewhere, silk sarongs printed with lobsters and ice-cream sundaes hang from the ceiling, lifted gently by an unobtrusive electric fan. They are also, intentionally, the kind of thing you might genuinely buy in Ibiza. That is part of the joke. Milly was always interested in the slippery line between art object and shop object, and the sarongs sit firmly on the right side of mischief because the imagery is so distinctly hers. Finally, a small vitrine holds bottles from her Shatavari perfume project, named after the Ayurvedic herb traditionally used to soothe perimenopausal anxiety. The fragrance names are dry as anything: Invisible, Proposition, Volatile. The wellness industry, gently skewered, with a smile. It is exactly the kind of thing Milly would have giggled about in a tutorial.
Being taught by Milly: the personal angle
This is the section I cannot pretend to be objective about, so I will not. From 2000, Milly taught on the MFA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths and in the Painting department at the Royal College of Art. I was lucky enough to get access to a few of her tutorials. She was famously, charmingly irreverent. Crucially, beneath the wit, she was also an extremely serious teacher.
One thing she said in a tutorial has stayed with me, and Goldsmiths CCA quoted it in the wall texts of the retrospective last summer because, apparently, she said it to a lot of us. "Art is a place to experiment, make mistakes and understand failure. It provides an alternative route to making absolute or well-researched proclamations." Standing in Aroma Venus, that line lands harder. Every painting in the room looks like someone who chose, knowingly, the experiment over the proclamation. Quietly, the Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show is a master class in giving yourself permission to be honest.
Honest critical observations
A 5/5 Ice cold review still has to be honest, otherwise it is a press release. So here, calmly, are the things this show does not quite nail.
First, the hang at Amanda Wilkinson is deliberately spare, which suits the work but also means several smaller paintings end up reading as supporting cast rather than as their own argument. Some of the late portraits, particularly the looser ones from 2021 and 2022, deserve a wall to themselves and do not get one.
Second, the show assumes a fair amount of context. If you have not seen the Goldsmiths CCA retrospective last summer, or done at least a quick read on BANK, you may walk in and think this is just nicely painted holiday photos. It is much more than that. However, Aroma Venus does not over-explain itself, and a single short caption near the Desert Sirens would help newer viewers join the dots without holding their hand.
Third, and this is structural rather than a flaw, it is small. Aroma Venus is a single-room commercial gallery show, not a museum survey. After spending a full afternoon at the Goldsmiths retrospective in August 2025, I wanted more rooms here. That is not Amanda Wilkinson's fault. The full Milly Thompson scale is on its way later in 2026 when the Goldsmiths show travels to Cardiff and the Baltic. But it does mean Aroma Venus, on its own, is a perfectly judged appetiser rather than the main course.
Why this Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show matters in 2026
The art world is excellent at celebrating very young artists and very dead old men. Mid-career and late-career women, particularly those who refuse to behave themselves, can still slip through. Milly Thompson nearly did. Her solo career started in earnest only after BANK dissolved in 2003, and her largest retrospective happened three years after she died. The Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show matters because it is a commercial gallery, with significant institutional backing, putting her in front of buyers, curators and the wider London public, and saying: this is a major British painter, please act accordingly.
Her timing is also perfect. Right now, the conversation around the female gaze, ageing bodies, perimenopause, glamour, pleasure and the wellness industry is everywhere. Milly was making this work, beautifully and pointedly, twenty years ago. If you are interested in painters who got there before the rest of the culture caught up, see what Rose Wylie did at the Royal Academy recently and then come and see Milly. They are not the same artist, but they are absolute cousins in attitude.
Practical info, value for money and getting there
Address: 1st Floor, 47 Farringdon Road, London, EC1M 3JB. Opening hours: Wednesday to Friday 12 noon to 6pm, Saturday 12 noon to 5pm. Closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Admission is free. The gallery is up one flight of stairs and there is no lift, which is worth flagging if you have any access needs. The Milly Thompson Aroma Venus exhibition runs until 23 May 2026, so you have a tight window. Staff are friendly and happy to chat about the works if you ask.
On value, the maths is generous. Entry is free and Farringdon is on the Elizabeth line, the Tube and Thameslink, so it is genuinely easy to get to from anywhere in London. If you are travelling in from outside the city, a return train ticket will cost you considerably less than many ticketed museum shows, particularly if you book in advance. Furthermore, you can comfortably pair the gallery with a stop at the Barbican or the Wellcome Collection on the same afternoon. A great London art day for the price of lunch.
The verdict
Milly Thompson Aroma Venus at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery is, for my money, the best small-gallery show in London this spring. It is funny, sensual, generous and a little bit dangerous, exactly like Milly was in person. Above all, it does the trickiest thing a posthumous show can do, which is feel alive. The paintings are cheerfully, unapologetically present. The sculptures still tease. The sarongs still drift in the breeze.
Overall, a 5/5 Ice cold. The Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show earns the top score because it is a perfectly pitched introduction to one of Britain's most quietly important late painters, hung with affection by a gallery that clearly understands her. The only reason I might, on a stricter day, have docked it half a point is the scale: this is a small show that deserves a big one to follow it. The good news is that bigger shows, in Cardiff and Gateshead, are on their way. Go before 23 May 2026, take a friend who needs reminding that pleasure is, indeed, a very interesting political place to reside in, and wear something you would not mind being painted in.
Cool Factor
★★★★★
5 out of 5 — Ice cold
Plan your visit at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery
Frequently asked questions
When is the Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show on?
The Milly Thompson Aroma Venus exhibition runs from 16 April to 23 May 2026 at Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, 47 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3JB. Opening hours are Wednesday to Friday 12 noon to 6pm and Saturday 12 noon to 5pm.
Is the Milly Thompson Aroma Venus exhibition free?
Yes, entry to the Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show is free. Amanda Wilkinson is a commercial gallery and does not charge admission, although works are for sale via the gallery directly.
Is the Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show worth visiting?
In my opinion, absolutely. It is a tightly curated single-room show, but it gathers some of Milly Thompson's finest paintings and sculptures from the last decade of her life and the gallery hangs them with care. If you have any interest in contemporary British painting, the female gaze, or the art that BANK influenced, it is well worth the trip.
Where else can I see Milly Thompson's work in 2026?
The Goldsmiths CCA retrospective My Body Temperature is Feeling Good, which closed in August 2025, travels to Chapter in Cardiff and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead during 2026. Selected works are also held in public collections including Tate, the British Council and the Government Art Collection.
How does Milly Thompson Aroma Venus compare to the Goldsmiths CCA show?
The Goldsmiths show was a full retrospective from 2010 onwards, including paintings, sculptures, video, perfumes, manifestoes and ephemera. By contrast, the Milly Thompson Aroma Venus show at Amanda Wilkinson is smaller and tighter, focused mainly on paintings, sculpture and sarongs. If you saw Goldsmiths, this distils that experience. If you missed it, this is a brilliant primer.
More from CoolCuration
- Cecily Brown at the Serpentine review: another loose-handed painter pulling the female nude out of the male gaze.
- Tracey Emin A Second Life at Tate Modern review: a different generation of British woman artist, with a similar refusal to behave.
- Howard Hodgkin Indian Leaves print: for collectors who like their painting saturated and intuitive.
- Great Women Artists book: a brilliant primer on the women you should already know about, and quite a few you don't.
- TrainPal for cheaper rail to London: a split-ticketing app that can shave a fair bit off train fares for gallery weekends.
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