A homecoming exhibition of Sarah Cunningham's paintings at Nottingham Contemporary has prompted friends, colleagues and collaborators to share their memories of the British painter, who died in November 2024 at the age of 31. The show is co-curated by Katie Simpson, a curator at Nottingham Contemporary who knew Cunningham personally, and Niall Ó Faircheallaigh. Simpson remembers Cunningham as strong-headed, articulate, kind, spiritual and compassionate, an artist who was serious and dedicated yet curious and generous in conversation. She describes work that is powerfully visceral and dynamic, from the largest canvases to the smallest, each carrying a distinct spiritual quality, and praises a rare confidence in mark-making and colour mixing that builds new worlds and pulls viewers inside them. Three works anchor the curators' reading of the practice: The World It Softly Lulls from 2021, Via Lucis from 2023, and Starshine and Clay from 2022. They felt the trio captured Cunningham's central concerns: her use of tone and colour, her interest in the blending of time across day and night, dawn and dusk, and elements of science fiction and world-building. The exhibition's title, like the paintings themselves, draws viewers in, asking what a world with a midnight sun might look like. Simpson stresses that Cunningham was not working representationally, aiming to depict recognisable landscapes, but materially, spiritually and immersively, trying to help viewers see beyond the limits of their own worlds and imagine new possibilities. Cunningham graduated from the Royal College of Art's painting programme in 2022, held her first solo show at Almine Rech in New York the same year, and presented The Crystal Forest at Lisson Gallery in 2023. Simpson calls it special to gather so much of her work in one place, in the city where she grew up, offering new audiences an entry point and giving those who knew and loved her a space to celebrate the paintings together.