Milly Thompson's Posthumous Show Celebrates Midlife Women's Pleasure

A posthumous exhibition of Milly Thompson's work, 'My Body Temperature is Feeling Good', is on view at Goldsmiths CCA in London through 24 August 2025. The show features works from 2010 onward, including silk sarongs, video, paintings, sculptures, and artist publications. Thompson, who died in 2022 at age 58 from a brain tumour, was a member of the London-based art collective BANK in the 1990s. Her solo practice focuses on women's desire and pleasure, often excluding men entirely. Works like the video '5000 years ritual VOLCANIC' (2013) and painted portraits depict middle-aged women self-indulgently lounging, swimming, or tanning, with wrinkles and cellulite unabashedly rendered. Thompson also critiqued the fashion industry through spoofs like 'VUOTO' (2012) and 'Desert Siren' sculptures, and the wellness industry with her 'Shatavari' perfume collection. Her 2016 manifesto 'I CHOOSE PAINTING' acknowledges the tension between feminist activism and her preference for traditional figurative painting, which she embraces as 'scrambling in male shit for breath'. The exhibition was reviewed in the September 2025 issue of ArtReview.