For three days in October, the art made by comedians on the podcast Secret Artists goes on show in Hackney and then gets raffled off. Tickets are £100 and every single one wins a piece. Mae Martin, Tom Allen, Fern Brady, Jamie Demetriou, Imogen Poots and Brett Goldstein are among the people whose paintings you might end up with.
Secret Artists Exhibition and Raffle runs 9 to 11 October, 11am to 6pm, at the Batsford Gallery on Hackney Road. It is put on by Art Friend Gallery and it is the first time the work from Secret Artists with Annie McGrath, the podcast where the host gets guests to make art, has been hung anywhere.
The raffle is the whole point
It is £100 a ticket and the twist is that there are no losers: buy one and you are guaranteed an artwork, you just do not get to choose which. So you might come away with Alex Horne’s pineapple in sunglasses, which is above, or you might get something quieter. All of it raises money for CREATE, a charity that runs creative workshops with people who are isolated or disadvantaged, in hospitals, care settings, schools and prisons.
Who has made something
The list runs long and is heavier on comedians than anything else: Mae Martin, Alex Horne, Isy Suttie, Jamie Demetriou, Jenny Eclair, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Phil Wang, Pierre Novellie, Fern Brady, Paul Foot, Nina Conti, Tom Allen, Elis James and Lou Sanders, with the actors Imogen Poots and Brett Goldstein in there too, and more besides.
The work itself is more varied than you would expect from a novelty premise. There are the jokes, obviously, a marshmallow with a face on it and a crab that could have come off a Provencal tablecloth, but there is also some genuinely considered drawing in the mix.
Our take: go on the Friday. It opens at 11am on 9 October and a three-day run in a small Hackney Road gallery means Saturday will be the busy one, particularly with a list of names this recognisable. Treat the £100 as a donation with a painting attached rather than as a punt, because you have no say in what you get and the whole thing exists to fund CREATE. And it is worth seeing even if you are not buying: free to walk in, ten minutes to look round, and the Batsford is a two-minute detour off the Hackney Road end of Columbia Road if you are already doing the flower market on the Sunday.
Need to know
- What: Secret Artists Exhibition and Raffle, artwork by comedians and actors from the Secret Artists podcast
- Where: The Batsford Gallery, 266 Hackney Road, London E2 7SJ
- When: 9 to 11 October 2026, 11am to 6pm
- Price: free to view. Raffle tickets are £100 and every ticket wins an artwork
- In aid of: CREATE, which runs creative workshops with isolated and disadvantaged people
- Nearest station: Hoxton, or Cambridge Heath
More of the neighbourhood in our Hackney guide, and the rest of the season in our guide to London exhibitions.
