The Baron’s Metamorphoses: Myths for a Failing Admiralty - The Baron Gilvan

27.04.2026 - 27.06.2026 | Ground Floor Spaces

Myth, in The Baron Gilvan’s hands, does not sit still.

Drawing inspiration from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, this immersive exhibition transforms classical myth into something absurd, immediate and psychologically raw. Gods, heroes and rulers do not arrive here in polished marble or distant grandeur. Instead, they slip into unstable landscapes, comic theatre and strange states of becoming, where collapse and reinvention seem to happen at once.

Apollo plays cricket. Daphne hovers between woman, laurel and willow. Narcissus fractures into reflection and echo. Daedalus and Icarus rehearse their catastrophe. King Midas listens as his band plays on. These are not figures inhabiting Olympus. They belong instead to a world of unstable authority, theatrical collapse and comic revelation, where admirals become clowns, gods resemble shipwrecked officers, and identity is always on the verge of slipping into some other form.

Installed through some of the more unusual spaces across the ground floor of The Sherborne, the exhibition carries a darker, stranger and more theatrical current into Of Myths and Murals. If Sir Quentin Blake’s The Joy of the Frog rises with buoyancy, humour and comic lift, The Baron’s paintings occupy a more unstable territory: one of distortion, psychic pressure and metamorphosis as something bodily, awkward and alive.

Colour plays a central role throughout. Sharp pinks, acidic greens, maritime browns and yellows evoke both carnival and decay. Figures lean, elongate, sprout extra faces and dissolve into their surroundings, as though caught mid-transformation. Yet these works resist despair. If there is collapse, there is also comedy. If there is ruin, there is reinvention. Laughter becomes a stabilising force. Transformation becomes possibility.

The Baron Gilvan lives and works in East Sussex, but his connection to the South West runs deep. The region has remained an important source of inspiration throughout his life and work, making this exhibition feel especially resonant within The Sherborne’s own South West setting.

What you’ll see

  • An immersive exhibition inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses

  • Gods, fools, admirals and heroes in strange states of collapse and reinvention

  • Paintings and drawings alive with comic tension, theatricality and transformation

  • Displays unfolding through some of the more unexpected spaces on the ground floor

About The Baron Gilvan

The Baron Gilvan is a painter and performer whose work moves between absurdity, sincerity, theatricality and raw psychological force. His paintings are instinctive, visceral and unruly, allowing forms to emerge, dissolve and reform as though thought itself were changing shape.

A note on metamorphosis

In this exhibition, metamorphosis is not graceful. It lurches, stretches, buckles and re-forms. Ovid’s ancient myths become something vivid and contemporary: part tragedy, part farce, part psychic weather.

Plan your visit

Opening times: Open daily from 10:30am to 4pm (3pm on Sundays)
Entry to The Sherborne is free.