ANDY EARL × Bankside Yards, an exhibition of portraits, landscapes and music photography at Native Land’s Bankside Yards.

Andy Earl x Bankside Yards:

New landmark photography exhibition finds home in Native Land’s historic South Bank railway arches

Opening to the public 8th May 2026

This May, Bankside Yards, a Native Land development, will mark a major cultural milestone with the opening of its historic Victorian arches to the general public for the first time in over a century, as a three month long photography exhibition opens. The inaugural public event, Andy Earl x Bankside Yards, celebrates the four-decade career of acclaimed photographer, filmmaker and artist whose work has defined the visual language of popular culture.

Set within one of the 14 restored Victorian railway arches the international touring exhibition from Arts University Bournemouth curated by Violet McClean will feature 40 pieces of work, bringing together large-scale panoramic works alongside smaller, more intimate pieces, allowing audiences to experience both the cinematic ambition and quieter observational detail of Earl’s work. Across portraiture, landscape, and commissioned imagery, the exhibition highlights his distinctive approach to composition and his long-standing engagement with visual culture. Drawing on fine art, surrealism, and architectural form, Earl’s photographs blur the line between photography and painting through staged and carefully constructed compositions.

Throughout his career Earl has collaborated with some of the world’s most influential artists, musicians, and national treasures, including Sir David Attenborough, Johnny Cash, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones, and Robbie Williams, producing more than over 400 record and album covers and directing around twenty music videos. His work is defined by a distinctive visual approach, including the development of his “Flash and Blur” technique, which introduced movement and instability into precisely staged images.

The day of the exhibition’s opening - 8th May - marks the 100th birthday of Sir David Attenborough and in tribute, the exhibition features Earl’s definitive Blue Planet portrait, a cinematic shot of Attenborough wading through a theatrical ocean, captured within the water tanks of Elstree Studios in 2003.

There will be several other iconic highlights displayed in the exhibition including:

● Pink Floyd, Delicate Sound of Thunder (1987): A seminal collaboration with designer Storm Thorgerson. Drawing on the dream-logic of Dalí and Magritte, these works were captured entirely in-camera under the sharp midday sun of Spain, remaining a pinnacle of pre-digital surrealism.

● The Rolling Stones, Like a Rolling Stone (1995): Working alongside director Michel Gondry, Earl utilised a revolutionary ‘flash and blur’ technique, capturing 12,000 frames from multiple angles to create a 3D hallucinogenic effect. This pioneering visual language later served as a direct inspiration for the "Bullet Time" sequences in The Matrix, forever altering the landscape of action cinema and also won a D&AD award ‘For the most Outstanding Pop Video 1996’.

● Robbie Williams, Life Thru a Lens (1997): Shot on the steps of UCL, this image served as a cinematic reconstruction of Robbie Williams’ Poster transition to a solo artist. The work remains so culturally resonant that it served as a key visual reference for the 2024 biopic Better Man.

● Darwin, Iceland (2018): Captured amidst the volcanic landscapes of Iceland, this portrait explores the interplay between human silhouette and geological form. Utilizing sea spray and natural light to echo the subject's profile against the rock, the image highlights Earl’s ability to find the surreal within the natural world.

As Bankside Yards continues to evolve into London’s newest mixed-use cultural district on the South Bank, the opening of the Victorian arches signals the beginning of a wider cultural programme embedded within the site’s historic fabric. With the delivery of the landmark residential building, Opus, scheduled for completion in early 2027, Andy Earl x Bankside Yards offers an early glimpse of the vibrant neighbourhood as it takes shape.

Exhibition in detail

Public access: 8th May 12pm

Location: Arch 10, Bankside Yards, 250 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 9AX

Opening hours: Wednesday - Sunday 11pm – 6pm

For further information on the exhibition please visit Andy Earl X Bankside Yards website https://andyearl.com/ or visit @banksideyards or www.banksideyards.com

Description supplied by the event organiser.