Discord & Harmony

24 Jan-18 Apr 2026

Overview

Discord & Harmony brings together a group of contemporary British artists who share Beryl Cook’s (1926 – 2008) radically generous approach to representing everyday life. Simultaneously considered one of Britain’s most loved artists while never being fully accepted by the establishment, Cook lived and worked in Plymouth and was celebrated as a chronicler of the every day. 

Presented concurrently with The Box’s centenary survey exhibition, Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy, KARST’s Discord & Harmony highlights artists who, like Cook, champion community, individuality, and moments of joy among people too often overlooked by canonical art history. Despite many of the works on show demonstrating a stylistic departure from Cook’s paintings, they are united by her legacy of open-mindedness, humour and irreverence. Through a range of media including painting, sculpture and video, the featured artists reflect on themes such as working-class identity, body-positivity and queer visibility. In these ways, the artists echo Cook’s insistence that ordinary life is worthy of serious – and celebratory – attention.

Discord & Harmony, the exhibition’s contradictory title, quotes Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 acceptance speech in which she ushered in an era of extreme social and economic transformation that continues to reshape the country today. Social mobility and aspirational consumer culture opened up new avenues for some, whilst the dismantling of social and industrial infrastructure left many communities abandoned and stigmatised. Most of the artists in Discord & Harmony either grew up during the Thatcher years of the 1980s and 90s, where the individual was prioritised over community, or were born afterwards into a radically changed Britain. 

In the midst of this great change, Beryl Cook’s paintings both affirmed the exuberance of a newly self-confident popular culture, whilst deeply sympathising with those whose lives were marginalised. Similarly, the artists in Discord & Harmony explore these contradictions, holding a mirror up to a Britain in which the reverberations of this era continue to shape our daily lives.

Discord & Harmony is supported by The Box, Plymouth.