You Can’t Buy My Love was a pop-up exhibition on display in February that celebrated the parts of love that have nothing to do with buying gifts or spending money.
It focused on a love that feels good and celebrated the joy of companionship; enjoying spending time together, walks along the beach and the power of a kiss.
Kayleigh Peters (West Sussex)
In Sickness and Health
2026, Embroidered Hospital Gown
In Sickness and Health is an embroidered hospital gown fragment that reflects on the role of love, partnership, and care when living with chronic illness.
A gold ring is incorporated as a symbol of marriage and enduring commitment to support one another through periods of uncertainty, pain, and recovery, which is the true marker of romantic love.
This piece is part of a larger body of work called The Gown Project which is a project that facilitates the reclamation of identity and narratives of women’s healthcare and gendered biases through the method of embroidering on to hospital gowns.
Beth J Ross (North Shields)
Two Kisses
1989 and 2007, Both acrylic on canvas framed in white wood.
Kisses is a series based on passionate, familial, friendly and drunken kisses, moments of intimacy, connection and human experience. The works capture the essence of fleeting yet profound experiences that shape our relationships with people and place.
Part of an ongoing series, these paintings emerged during the first lockdown. They felt like a subconscious call for intimacy; past, present and future.
Jessica Evett (USA)
Be Mine
Linocut
When you need a heart to heart conversation about the concept of love, we frequently encounter commercialised ideas about romance rather than deep connection.
Conversation heart candies were invented in an American pharmacy in 1847, little lozenges with phrases meant to express affection. The UK’s version of these hearts, Love Hearts, became popular in the 1950s.
Inspired by a source image of a couple taken from an American publication from the 1950s called Modern Romance, this take on a conversation heart is an attempt at making a short, heartfelt message that makes you actually feel something.
My linocut method allows me to reproduce these images like a self-contained factory stamping out confections, repeating the same message over and over and over again in a variety of colours.