Paint-a-long with Joe Lycett in Every Thing Must Go

Joe Lycett is hosting a paint-a-long session at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Monday 30 November, inside his exhibition Every Thing Must Go. It's a drop-in session, so you can just turn up when you fancy it rather than booking a specific slot.

To get the full picture, you have to know what Every Thing Must Go is. It's Lycett's first major solo exhibition of paintings, and it's been running at the museum since July 2026. The whole show works around the theme of things that are no longer with us, and Lycett has set it up as a bold, salon-style display. The walls are lined with deceased celebrities, discontinued chocolate bars, extinct animals and destroyed buildings — a collection Lycett describes as a 'neon graveyard'.

That's the backdrop for the paint-a-long: you'll be painting inside the exhibition itself, surrounded by those same paintings. It's a hands-on session, so you're not just looking at the work on the walls; you're getting stuck in with your own. If you're not in the mood for painting, there's another side to the show: throughout the exhibition, you can take part in live printmaking sessions guided by expert printers from Stirchley Printworks, who use traditional techniques to show you how it's done.

So, if you're around on Monday 30 November, you can drop into the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, find Every Thing Must Go, and join in. It's a drop-in session, so there's no need to worry about a fixed start time.