Kate Burling, Anna Choutova, Douglas Cantor, Nettle Grellier, Gosia Kołdraszewska, Lydia Pettit, Olivia Sterling, Sophie Vallance Cantor

Cherry Bomb!

★★☆☆☆

On until 4 October 2025

To hang a group exhibition on the idea that “the cherry throughout the history of art and literature has symbolised dualities” is to risk confusing Chekhov with Nabokov. Cantor’s handsome canvases – white of hearts, red of fruit, black of horses, and so on – show up Pettit’s oily board roundel – red of lips, red of tongue, red of OnlyFans. It, in turn, embarrasses the former. Sterling’s red nipple as the icing-topper does the same to flesh. Grellier, whose simple, faded pencils articulate past summer’s longing as both innocence and the eros, are granted too little stage time to save the assembled company from surplus, such as Kołdraszewska’s graphite cherry-poppers. 

Curating to a scheme (and a sales target) hinges on covert abstraction. This exhibition – not for the first time in the gallery’s short history – could have done better if the task were left to a single artist. 


notes and notices are short and curt exhibition reviews. Read more:

Co Westerik, Centenary at Sadie Coles HQ ★★★☆☆

Co Westerik

Centenary

★★★★☆

Westerik catches his figures in deep contemplation in front of the mirror, in the gynaecologist’s chair, or even mid-orgy.

Pablo Bronstein, Cakehole at Herald Str ★★★☆☆

Pablo Bronstein

Cakehole

★★★☆☆

Bronstein falls into the late evening stupor of the cheese trolley, the oyster tray, and… the Mars bar.

Auudi Dorsey at PM/AM ★★★★☆

Auudi Dorsey

★★★★☆

Dorsey records the human experience with the true universalism of paint.

Alia Farid, Elsewhere at Chisenhale ★★★☆☆

Alia Farid

Elsewhere

★★★☆☆

There is no answer in the work. Its cause and the object become enmeshed in a bland, exoticized mess. 

Oisín Byrne, Not Marble at Amanda Wilkinson ★★☆☆☆

Oisín Byrne

Not Marble

★★☆☆☆

Byrne has a type. Or rather, he’ll paint you into one.

RM, A Story Backwards at Auto Italia ★★☆☆☆

RM

A Story Backwards

★★☆☆☆

Having forgotten what the ‘dramatic’ in art stands for, visual artists today too often mistake hacked theory for stage directions.

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