Dominique Fung

(Up)Rooted

★★☆☆☆

On until 20 December 2023

In Fung’s pastoral paintings and ceramics, the peaceful garden pond is the site of despair. Men weep into water lilies. The damned are locked in an underwater dance. Ghosts go fishing and fish are apex predators. 

All this tries to be macabre and surreal like in Bosch or Miyazaki but is instead laughably twee, not least because this isn’t the only show on in London set at the bottom of a Victorian garden. Fung may be on-trend and her East Asian influences elevate the canvases a little but the clumsy sculptures send the whole show back to the garden centre.


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

Mandy El-Sayegh, Interiors at Thaddeus Ropac ★★☆☆☆

Mandy El-Sayegh

Interiors

★★☆☆☆

For the abundance of material, there simply aren’t enough ideas in the exhibition to go around these Mayfair interiors.

Mohammed Z. Rahman, A Flame is a Petal at Phillida Reid ★★★☆☆

Mohammed Z. Rahman

A Flame is a Petal

★★★☆☆

Rahman’s zine hand makes this make-believe explicit but not plausible.

Joseph Awuah-Darko, How is your day going? at Ed Cross ★★☆☆☆

Joseph Awuah-Darko

How is your day going?

★★☆☆☆

This project relies on layers of gimmicks and, sadly, they show through Awuah-Darko’s thick palette knife impasto.

The last train after the last train at Public ★★★☆☆

The last train after the last train

★★★☆☆

The failed magic tricks in Lyndon Barrois Jr.’s canvases would hang in the final scene of Chinese Roulette in which everyone turns against everyone.

Phung-Tien Pham, doesn’t work at Project Native Informant ★★☆☆☆

Phung-Tien Pham

doesn't work

★★☆☆☆

Fad aesthetics for fad ideas.

Material Rites at Gathering ★★★☆☆

Fritsch, Genzken, Oldenburg, Shani, Sherman, Smithson, Thek

Material Rites

★★★☆☆

The instincts are right, but too much makes sense to make sense together.

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