#stephen friedman gallery

[garadinervi]

Melvin Edwards, Then There Here And Now – Circle Today, (barbed wire and pencil, dimensions variable; detail), 1970/2014 [Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. © Melvin Edwards]

[artintestine]

Jonathan Baldock, We are Flowers of One Garden, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, 2023

[longlistshort]

Anne Rothenstein’s beautiful and mysterious paintings are on view at Stephen Friedman Gallery until 6/22/24.

From the gallery’s press release-

Rothenstein’s dreamlike paintings depict expansive landscapes and intimate interiors drawn from memory, personal experiences, and found material from newspapers and magazines. Whether depicting androgynous figures or melancholic landscapes, Rothenstein’s works blur the lines of identity and narrative, inviting observers to immerse themselves in the ambiguity of her creations. Curator and writer Simon Grant aptly describes the experience of viewing Rothenstein’s paintings, “Looking at these paintings can feel as if we have joined a drama that has been unfolding but of which we may have missed the crucial part.”

Rothenstein’s figures are deliberately ambiguous, conjuring introspection and contemplation. While the subdued and pensive demeanor of her characters might convey solitude, they exude a presence that transcends this. In Three Figures (2023), the artist provides a glimpse into the inherent isolation experienced by human beings within a social context. Positioned on the far left, a figure is wearing a reconfigured tuxedo dress, which obscures defined gender and identity. This attire, also observed in Seated Figure and Thinking about Billy Porter (both 2024), serves as a nod to fashion as a form of political expression, drawing inspiration from actor Billy Porter’s ensemble at the 2019 Oscars ceremony. At once, these figures point to new horizons in gender politics while echoing the longstanding tradition of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century portraiture, reminiscent of artists such as Edouard Vuillard and Edvard Munch.

The power behind these works is further evident in the artist’s application of paint, and her distinctive use of color. Throughout the exhibition, burgundy red tones, pale greens, and nostalgic blues emerge and recede to reveal depth and movement. The color palette pays homage to colorists who inspire Rothenstein: Howard Hodgkin, Vilhelm Hammershøi, and Gwen John. In works like Shadow and Heat (both from 2023), the artist rendered two iterations of the same composition. The subtle variations between them evoke the notion of distorted memories resurfacing in our minds. Here, a lone figure and a dog traverse a burning landscape, reflecting concerns about climate change and devastating wildfires. This further evidences how global events influence Rothenstein’s practice: “However much I try to keep the outside world at a distance it always insists on creeping in and often steers the direction the work is taking”.

In her exploration of scale and texture for her New York debut, Rothenstein oscillates between canvas and panel for the first time, introducing a contrast to her signature wood panels. This shift enables the artist to delve deeper into her creative process and further enhance the immersive quality of her work. Through a combination of bold brushstrokes and nuanced color variations, Rothenstein achieves a striking visual harmony, where figures emerge from the surrounding space with a haunting presence. Speaking of Rothenstein’s work, art critic and curator Katy Hessel writes, “When I look at your works, their solitariness comforts me. It’s rare that you see solitude as a happy thing.”

Also on the gallery’s website are the quotes below from Rothenstein that provide additional background on her process-

Speaking of her artistic process, Rothenstein says, “My reasons, or intentions, when making a particular painting are quite mysterious to me. The spark is always lit from an existing image, a photograph or another painting, and I often don’t discover why that image leaped out at me or what it is I’m exploring until the work is finished. Sometimes I never find out. It is almost entirely intuitive. Finding a rhythm, searching for balance, alert to missteps, to what is happening, to changes of direction.

I am telling myself a story much of the time and asking questions. Who is this, where is this place, what is going on? This is what I think of as the noise of a painting. And of course, what I am trying to reach is the silence … There is a wonderful Philip Guston quote: “if you’re really painting YOU walk out.” That is what I mean by reaching the silence.”

[mentaltimetraveller]

Jonathan Baldock, Mother Flower, 2022, hessian, felt, ceramic stoneware, wadding, hollow fibre, wood, boning, dried roses, dimensions variable. 

 Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; photograph: Todd-White Art Photography

[abwwia]

Artist Sarah Ball in studio (2023). © Alban Roinard. Courtesy of Stephen Friedman Gallery, New York

[trascapades]

⚖️ #ArtIsAWeapon Calling the name #TrayvonMartin, who was murdered by a whyte supremacist 14 years ago today (January 26, 2012).

Sending love to Trayvon's family and friends.

#NEVERFORGET

#BlackLivesMatter #BlackHistoryMonth

🎨Image by Artist #DeborahRoberts @rdeborah191 , One of Many (2022), mixed-media collage on paper, 22-by-15 inches, for Jan. 2022 New York Magazine New York Magazine @nymag Special Issue: Ten Years After Trayvon Martin. Courtesy of Deborah Roberts, Stephen Friedman Gallery London and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles. Photograph of artwork: Paul Bardagjy.

#BlackArt

[distinktionsfetzen]

Check out Ilona Keserü, Big Earth, Water (1985), From Stephen Friedman Gallery

[exhibitionsvisited]

2024

This year I visited the following exhibitions

10th Jan, Zara Sands and Olly Centres, General Practice, Lincoln

12 Jan, Bodies for Practice, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

2nd Feb, Seasonal Strokes, General Practice, Lincoln

Chris Ofilli and William Blake, Tate Britain, London

9 Feb, Chris Ofilli, Tate Britain, London

9 Feb, Woman in Protest, Tate Britain, London

9 Feb, Richard Hamilton, Tate Britain, London

9 Feb, Yuri Pattison and J M W Turner, Tate Britain, London

9 Feb, Zineb Saleh Tate Britain, London

9 Feb, Cat Flap Blink, Terrace Gallery, London

9 Feb, Victor Bengtsson, Public, London

9 Feb, Martin Aagaard Hansen, Tanja Nis-Hansen & Kazuyuki Takezaki , Union Pacific, London

9 Feb, Mao Yan, Pace Gallery, London

9 Feb, ,Ziping Wang, Unit, London

9 Feb, Zach lieberman, Unit, London

9 Feb, Conversation Galante, Pillar Corris, London

9 Feb, Frank Bowling ,Hauser and Wirth, London

9 Feb, Uman ,Hauser and Wirth, London

9 Feb, Willem Sasnal, Sadie Coles ,London

9 Feb, Anna Barriball, Frith St,London

9 Feb, Emi Otaguro, Masanori Tomita, Nobuya Hitsuda & Yutaka Nozawa , Sadie Coles,London

9 Feb, Come Home, Sadie Coles ,London

9 Feb, Zineb Sedira, Goodman Gallery,London

9 Feb, Marc Chagall, Alon Zakaim, London

9 Feb, Polymythologies, Tiwani Contemporary,London

9 Feb, Jeffrey Gibson, Stephen Friedman,London

9 Feb, Claire Gavronsky, Goodman Gallery ,London

9 Feb, Rose Shakinovsky, Goodman Gallery ,London

9 Feb, Olivia Flax, Holtermann ,London

9 Feb,Burri, Miró , Ermnst, Nahmad Projects,London

9 Feb, Gerhard Richter, David Zwirner ,London

9 Feb, Drawn into the Present, Thaddeus Ropac ,London

9 Feb, Andy Warhol, Thaddeus Ropac ,London

9 Feb, Pauline Boty, Gazelli, ,London

9 Feb, Karel Appel, Max Hetzler, ,London

9 Feb, Alexis Hunter, Richard Saltoun, ,London

9 Feb, Premiums 1, Royal Academy ,London

9 Feb, Entangled Pasts, Royal Academy ,London

16 Feb, Punk: Rage and Revolution, Northampton Museum & Art Gallery

16 Feb, Material Matters, Northampton Museum & Art Gallery

16 Feb, Elke Pollard, Northampton Museum & Art Gallery

21 Feb, Practice Research, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

22 Feb,  Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Nottingham Contemporary

22 Feb, Dora Budor, Nottingham Contemporary

22 Feb, Danica Maier, Beam, Nottingham

1 March, Andrew Bracey, General Practice, Lincoln

8 March, Darren Diss and Brian Voce, The Hub, Sleaford

8 March, Jo Cope, The Hub, Sleaford

20 March, Mirrors Windows Portals, project space plus, Lincoln

23 March, Feng-Ru Lee, Weston Gallery, Nottingham

23 March, Dan Rapley, Angear Visitor Centre, Nottingham

23 March, Saad Qureshi, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham

23 March, Fascinating Finds from Nottingham's Caves, University of Nottingham Museum

23 March,Peep Show, Bennington Gallery, Nottingham

23 March, Shahnawaz Hussain, Bennington Gallery, Nottingham

23 March, Osheen Siva, Bennington Gallery, Nottingham

23 March, Debsyo Bolaji, New Art Exchange, Nottingham

24 March, Jason Wilsher-Mills, Lincoln Museum

12 April, When Forms Come Alive,  Hayward Gallery, London

12 April, Virginia Verran, Michael Richardson Contemporary Art, London

12 April, Secundino Hernández , Victoria Miro Gallery, London

12 April, Neal Rock, New Art Projects, London

12 April, Salvador Dali, Clarendon Fine Art, London

12 April, Unravel, Barbican, London

12 April, Soufiane Ababri, Barbican, London

12 April, Ibrahim Mahama, Barbican, London

12 April, Lobert Zandvilet, Grimm, London

12 April, Reina Sugihara, Arcadia Misa, London

12 April, Marria Pratts Carl Kostyal, London

12 April, Richard Serra,David Zwirner, London 

12 April, Marcelina Akpojotor, Rele, London

12 April, Fathi Hassan,Richard Saltoun, London 

12 April, Erwin Wurm,Thaddaeus Ropac, London 

12 April, Harold Cohen, Gazelli Art House, London 

12 April, Adam Pendleton, Galerie Max Hetzler, London 

12 April, Nancy Haynes,  Marlborough, London 

12 April, Shizuko Yoshikawa, Marlborough, London

12 April, Shizuko Yoshikawa and Bridget Riley, Marlborough, London

12 April, Betty Parsons,Alison Jacques, London 

12 April, Woody De Othello, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London 

12 April, Peter Blake,  Waddington Custot Galleries, London

12 April, Standing in the Gap, Goodman Gallery, London 

12 April, Ulla von Brandenburg, Pilar Corrias, London 

12 April, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Goodman Gallery, London

12 April, The Leisure Centre, The Brown Collection, London 

12 April, Shine On,Sadie Coles HQ Davies St, London

12 April, Albert Oehlen, Gagosian, London 

12 April, Gavin Turk, Ben Brown Fine Arts, London 

12 April, François Morellet,Annely Juda Fine Art, London 

12 April, Thomas Allen, Ronchini Gallery, London 

12 April, Darya Diamond, Pippy Houldsworth, London

12 April, Li Hei Di, Pippy Houldsworth, London

12 April, Florence Hutchings, Redfern Gallery, London

12 April, Marilyn Lerner, Spruth Magers, London

12 April, Barabara Kruger, Spruth Magers, London

12 April, Edward Burtynsky, Flowers, London

12 April, Terry Frost, Flowers, London

12 April, Cinthia Marcelle,Sprovieri, London 

12 April, Matthias Groebel,Gathering, London 

12 April, Raqs Media Collective, Frith Street Gallery, London 

12 April, Kati Heck, Sadie Coles, London

17 April, Trim, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

26 April, Marking Time, General Practice, Lincoln

8 May, Cache 05, Anglia Storage, Lincoln

8 May, Sacred Spaces, St Peter and Gowt, Lincoln

8 May, Parting of the Minds, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

8 May, Paul Letchworth, Gallery St. Martin's, Lincoln

11 May, Anna Reading, Uffington Notice Board

12 May, Common Ground, Uffington Village Hall

15 Ma, Groundings, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

29 May, Caravaggio, St Johns Cathedral, Valletta

31 May, Durer, Mdina Cathedral Museum

31 May, Joe Pellegrini Petit Collection, Wignacourt Museum, Rabat

31 May, Anton Agius, Wignacourt Museum, Rabat

4 June, Now I'm Here, Later I'll be There, Cadman studios, Stoke on Trent

7 June, Come to Fruition, Peter de Wint Building, Lincoln

18 June, Meet the Future, Grosvenor Building, Manchester

18 June, A to Z and Back Again, Holden Gallery, Manchester

19 June, Counter Culture, Djnogoly Gallery, Nottingham

19 June, John Newling, Lakeside Gallery, Nottingham

2 July, Oliver Ventress, General Practice, Lincoln

10 July, Sense of Belonging, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

12 July, Donald G. Rodney, Spike Island, Bristol

12 July, Aperiodic, Kit Form Gallery, Bristol

20th July, Text and Texture, General Practice, Lincoln

24th July, Resonating Museum Walls, Lincoln Museum

6 August, The Time is Always Now, The Box, Plymouth

16 August, Al Held White Cube Bermondsey, London

16 August, Joe Bloom, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London

16 August, Muhammad Zeeshan, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London

16 August, Rahima Gambo, Gasworks, London

16 August, Steve Klee, WIP Space, London

16 August, Nudge it, Terrace Gallery, London

16 August, Guild, Fillet space, London

16 August, Francis Alÿs, Barbican, London

16 August, Meera Shakti Osborne, Peer, London

16 August, Steph Huang, Tate Britain, London

16 August, Alvaro Barrington, Tate Britain, London

16 August, Keith Piper and Rex, Tate Britain, London

16 August, Franciska Themerson, Tate Britain, London

16 August, Balraj Khanna, Tate Britain, London

16 August, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon, Tate Britain, London

17 August, Songs of the Open Road, Halycon, London

17 August, London Pictures, Gilbert and George Centre, London

17 August, Damien Hirst, Phillips, London

17 August, Supernova, Flowers, London

17 August, Asi Joy Samuel and Claudia Yu, Frieze no. 9, London

17 August, Yinka Shonibare, Serpentine Gallery, London

17 August, Judy Chicago, Serpentine Gallery, London

17 August, Minsuk Cho, Serpentine Gallery, London

17 August, Gerhard Richter, Serpentine Gallery, London

17 August, Agnes Scherer,  Sadie Coles, London

17 August, Matthew Barney,  Sadie Coles, London

17 August, Isabella Ducrot, Sadie Coles HQ, London

17 August, Bertolt Brecht, Raven Row, London

17 August, Phantom Hymn, Modern Art, London

17 August, Awaken Metamagical Hand, Gazelli Art House, London

7 August, Roe Ethridge Gagosian, Davies St, London

17 August, Minoru Nomata, White Cube Mason’s Yard, London

17 August, Dominique White, Whitechapel Gallery, London

17 August, Archipelago: Winds in Orbit, Whitechapel Gallery, London

17 August, Peter Kennard, Whitechapel Gallery, London

18 August, Yoko Ono, Tate Modern, London

18 August, Jannis Kounnelius, Tate Modern, London

18 August, Inside Job (the Tate Staff Biennale), Tate Modern, London

18 August, Art and Text, Tate Modern, London

18 August, Gillie and Marc, St. Pauls, London

18 August, Lina Iris Viktor, Sir John Soane Museum, London

23 August, Nick Simpson, General Practice, Lincoln

23 August, What? Now, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

31st August, The Kola Nut Cannot be Contained, Welcome Collection, London

31st August, Being Human, Welcome Collection, London

31st August, Jason Wilsher-Mills, Welcome Collection, London

31st August, Penny Slinger, Richard Saltourn, London

31st August, Grace Weaver, Max Hetzler, London

31st August, Rheim Alkadhi, ICA, London

31st August, Vanessa Bell, Courtauld Institute, London

31st August, Henry Moore, Courtauld Institute, London

31st August, Tavares Strachan, Hayward Gallery, London

31st August, Graham Crowley, Domobaal, London

31st August, Contemporary collecting David Hockney to Cornelia Parker, British Museum, London

31st August, Rembrandt and his Children, British Museum, London

31st August, Liorah Tchiprout, Pippy Houldsworth, London

31st August, Hockney and Piereo: A Longer Look, National Gallery, London

31st August, Discover Degas and Miss La La, National Gallery, London

31st August, Don Brown, Sadie Coles, London

1st September, Ed Clark, Turner Contemporary, Margate

1st September, Lynda Benglis, Turner Contemporary, Margate

1st September, Portfolio X Windmill Community Gardens, Turner Contemporary, Margate

9th September, MA Fine Art show, University of Northampton

11th September, MA Fine Art show, Staffordshire University

13 September, Take one A Day, Usher Gallery, Lincoln

14 September, Erica Eyres, Turntable Gallery, Grimsby

14 September, Dale Alcock, Unseen Arts, Grimsby

16 September, MA Design Degree Show, Project Space Plus, Lincoln

20 September, Lubna Chowdhary, Graves Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, PostNatures, Graves Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, Colour, Form and Line, Graves Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, A Passion for Prints, Graves Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, Odilon Redon, Graves Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, Art and Identity, Graves Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, We Are The Monument, Graves Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, Show Your Metal, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, Tess Jaray, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, Festival of the MindMillennium Gallery, Sheffield

20 September, Festival of the Mind, Persistence Works, Sheffield

20 September, Jack Grinno, Gloam, Sheffield

[pwlanier]

Jiro Takamatsu was born in 1936, Tokyo, Japan. He died in 1998.

Takamatsu was an influential artist, theorist, and teacher in 1960s and 1970s Japan. His work combined subversive and playful aspects of Dada and Surrealism with an idiosyncratic use of Minimalism’s refined visual language. After finishing studies in oil painting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1958, Takamatsu worked in a range of media, including sculpture, photography, painting, drawing, and performance.

Like Japan’s Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Gutai Art Association, 1954–72), a group that sought to move away from museums, galleries and other institutional settings, Takamatsu created public interventions or activities outside the confines of exhibition spaces. With artists Genpei Akasegawa and Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Takamatsu formed the collective Hi Red Center (1963–64), which carried out actions in Tokyo to call attention to issues faced in the post-war urban climate. Takamatsu is also widely associated with the movement ‘Mono-Ha’ (‘School of Things’, 1967–79). Seeking to “reveal the world as it is”, ‘Mono-Ha’ engaged the world through gesture, action, process and experimentation, rather than formal studio-art methods or finished artworks.

Stephen Friedman

[jonthegiraffe]

Virtual sketchbook 1 assignment

1. WRITING AND RESEARCH

1. One little-known fact about me is I love to work out and do art in my free time though I am in no way talented or have done art for very long. 

2. 

A) The artist's name is Kehinde Wiley and focuses on detailed portraits with usually floral backgrounds of black men and women.

B) He was commissioned to make a portrait of former President Barack Obama. 

C) I could not find out why the Portrait of Tyesha Flemons was made or who she is but I did find out that it is an oil painting and is at the Stephen Friedman Gallery.

D) Kehinde Wiley was put into after-school art classes when he was a child. This is because his mom wanted him to stay off the streets. 

E) In his artwork, he tries to replicate the old masters which were European artists before the 1800s.

3. It has changed the way I look at it since I now know some background information. The first time I looked at it I thought it was just some random portrait of a famous black woman. Turns out his art is more about colored people as a whole. I think since he gives a piece of extraordinary art by someone who is not famous it gives more of a look at more common people who are not celebrities with some exceptions like former president Barack Obama.

(My sources)

https://kehindewiley.com/Links to an external site. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehinde_WileyLinks to an external site.

2. ART AND WRITING

This is a variation of The Great Wave off Kanagawa. the medium that was used was ink. In the original, there is an array of colors so some of it must be colored ink as well instead of just black. It serves the purpose of giving my room more personality. I do think it is very beautiful due to the colors, the detail, and the composition itself.

3. WRITING A SELF-PORTRAIT

I am a 22-year-old white man and I work out, play video games, and do art for fun. I do not currently work anywhere as of the moment because I just got laid off. What makes me uniquely me is that I really care for wildlife and love to do art mostly because of the process and feeling of doing it, and I have a deep sense of dedication to the people I care about. When I look at art, I think I can sense the detail, For example, When I look at The Great Wave of Kanagawa, If you look closely, you can tell the men are about to brace for impact.

4. ART PROJECT (SELF-PORTRAIT)

[notforthebin]

Lisa Brice

Studied in Michaelis School of Fine Art in the 1980s she came to London in 1998 to take a residency in Gasworks Gallery and ended up staying there. She started out working in printing, photography, video and mixed media. After moving to the UK she was predominately working as a painter. Her first exhibition was in the Frank Hanel Gallery where she appropriated images from Thailands sex industry signage. Her earlier exhibitions mainly included themes of racial tensions, violence and crime in South Africa. 2016 Brice was involved in a designers exhibition and soon after also took part in Salon 94 in New York and more in the Uk. She had two solo exhibitons in Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and another in the Tate.

In 2018 she exhibited in Tate Britain again, this time with her blue ink works she calls 'blue devils', one based on John Everett Millais' Ophelia (painting)with Ophelia standing upright holding a cigarette, the other based on Parting at Morning by William Rothenstein with the emaciated model repainted, filled out, also smoking a cigarette.

John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-2.

Lisa Brice, After Ophelia, 2018.

Sir William Rothenstien, Parting at Morning, 1891.

Lisa Brice, Parting at Dusk, 2018.

'I like to think that my paintings are the antithesis of misrepresentation – the reclamation of the canvas by all the models, painters, wives, mistresses and performers. The spaces I depict are dream-like in the sense that they are fictional, but very much based on reality and lived, sensorial experience.' - Brice.

[garadinervi]

Melvin Edwards, Then There Here And Now – Circle Today, (barbed wire and pencil, dimensions variable; detail), 1970/2014 [Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. © Melvin Edwards]

[publicartfund]

“I am fascinated by the ways in which African Americans are reclaiming objects that were taken from them...The colonizers stole a lot of jewelry, ornaments, gold, and transported them together with the slaves they put in chains. When you look at my work, the chains are referencing this history, but they are also reclaiming it by turning adversity into adornment.”—@Babiryesculptor In a recent @bombmag interview with @ksenia.m.soboleva, #BlackAtlantic artist Leilah Babirye’s discusses her sculpture “Agali Awamu (Togetherness)”, on view at @brooklynBridgePark, and reflects on the present and the future of her artistic practice. Visit the link in our bio to read the full interview. 📷 #LeilahBabirye, “Agali Awamu (Togetherness),” 2022 Courtesy of the artist, Gordon Robichaux, NY, and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London Presented by Public Art Fund as part of “Black Atlantic” on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York City, May 17–November 27, 2022 Photo: @nicholasknightstudio, Courtesy Public Art Fund, NY. (at Brooklyn Bridge Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckv28qxsR1k/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[mrb33]

A Mooch in Mayfair

Walking through Burlington Arcade to get to Cork Street the Lalique Boutique display catches my eye. 

 James Turrell designs!  Wow!  

(I'm told they range in price from £21,000 to £36,000).

 *

Picture This

Photorealism 1966 -1985 at Waddington Custot

Robert Betchie - '62 Chevy (1970)

Don Eddy - Private Parking III (1971)

From the Press Release:  Don Eddy said in an interview in 1972: “It raises the question of whether you are looking at an illusion of objects in space, or a representation of a flat piece of paper – a photograph – which is in turn a representation of things in space. The idea of being photographic or true to life doesn’t really interest me. It's the references between what we know, what we see, what we think we see and what’s there, between the surface of the canvas and the illusion in the canvas. Those are the real problems it seems to me.”

*

Tom Howse 

at Gallerie Opdahl (Frieze 9 Cork Street)

Press Release:

Tom Howse, b. 1988 in Chester, UK.  Lives and works in London, UK.

With paintings as his medium, Tom Howse explores the borders between the real and the imaginary. Through visual confabulations of myths and folklore, the absurd and the known, Howse questions our seek for understanding. Derived from a need embedded across time, borders, and cultures, he investigates the desire for comprehension as it moves in and out of our consciousness. In his own quest, Howse works with figurative imagery where people, animals, and fables interact in familiar and unfamiliar environments. As scenes unfold through the window of a dining room, a swamp of prehistoric dimensions, or a cultivated landscape, Howse begins to distort and reconfigure the proposed logic of our expectations. By twisting the proportions, perspectives, and dimensions of the depicted, the known is extended into the realm of fantasy. Anchored in the principles of our accustomed line of thought, the unfolding narratives present the observer with an alternate space where the margins between the real and the imaginary begin to dissolve.

Tom Howse - P.I.G.E.O.N  2023

Tom Howse - And I am returned to the splendour and warmth of your love (2023) (Detail)

Tom Howse - The Ripple of your Memory Coruscate Across The Endless immensities of Solitude 2023 (Detail)

*

IF IT CONCERNS US, IT CONCERNS YOU

Alfredo Jaar at Goodman Gallery

Installation artist/interventionist.

Searching for Africa in Life 1996/2022

*

The Arrangement of Stars 

Sky Glabush -  at Stephen Friedman Gallery

From The Press release: Glabush’s practice subverts traditional painterly archetypes and presents landscape, still life and portraiture through an historic lens. Primarily figurative and often underpinned by abstraction, these large-scale, surreal paintings provide narratives as they shift in and out of focus. 

The artist uses a rigorous drawing practice and his paintings exist as a meeting point for different ideas

and approaches. “The architecture of the drawing is embedded in the materials,” Glabush says, “All the paintings have gone through this process of getting the structure up through the drawing, breaking it down and rebuilding it through colour.” The artist often mixes sand into paint to build texture and to erase but not conceal the labour in his work. This rich surface is a magnet on which bold pigments vibrate and infuse the artist’s works with a humming energy.

Estuary 2023 Gash-Gold-Vermillion 2023 

If the wild Bird could Speak 2023

*

Where Two Rivers Meet

Dr. Esther Mahlangu -  at Almine Rech Gallery

From The Press release: Art was a calling from a very young age for the artist. Even when Mahlangu was too young to be painting walls — the exclusive privilege of married Ndebele women — she defied traditions and was eventually granted the freedom to continue. “At ten years old, she used to watch her mother and grandmother painting their house. Longing to join them, when they took a break from painting, she would try her luck without their knowledge. But when they returned, they scolded her telling her never to do that again as her lines were skewed. ‘Every single afternoon when they went to have a nap, I’d try to paint. I got into trouble every day until eventually they realized that in my heart I wanted to paint.’ Gradually her mother and grandmother granted her a small space at the back of the house to paint, with daily inspections, and as her artwork improved, she was allowed to paint the front of the house.”

*

Episodes Far from Home

Tomokazu Matsuyama -  at Almine Rech Gallery

From The Press release: Colourful motifs crowd the dense, graphical surfaces of his works, forming garden vistas or intimate boudoirs. Their origins are eclectic: a luscious floral might be drawn from a print by 19th century British designer William Morris or from an Edo Period kimono. In a bed of plants from divergent climes, an empty Sapporo bottle and a Starburst wrapper lie like the detritus of globalisation. A portrait inspired by a photograph of French couturier Christian Dior, meanwhile, bears the golden flourishes of a counterfeit Hermes scarf that Matsuyama bought in New York’s garment district. Completed on dynamically shaped canvases, these paintings take their compositional cues from Grand Manner portraits or pastorals in the pre-modern European tradition, while their use of skewed perspectives and absence of shading recall the flat planes of Japanese woodblock prints known as ukiyo-e. Signifiers of East and West are willfully scrambled here, as are renditions of the ‘real’ and the ‘fake.’ In Matsuyama’s work, as with his own diasporic identity, such differences are shaky social constructions.

*

Photographs

Phillips –  (London Auction 19 May 2023)

Mert and Marcus - Missy Running 2005  Phillips 19 May 2023

Phillips Ellen von Unworth - Your Turn, Rihanna (detail)2009

Phillips Irving Penn - Steinberg and nose mask, New York 1966

Rala Choi - A woman lying on the sofa 2018

[abwwia]

Sarah Ball, Elliot (2023). © Sarah Ball. Photo: Todd White Art Photography. Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and New York.

[deadassdiaspore]

Denzil Forrester, From Trench Town to Porthtowan, 2017, oil on canvas, 1.3 × 1.6 m. Courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.