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You’d never guess that Helen Johnson is an art therapist as well as a painter when her subdued hanging canvases come with titles like Late mirror stageTransfence love, and Lack. Women, whole or in body parts, are thrown around these images by chaotic lines in shifting scales and perspectives. They’d like you to know that they’re thinking of serious matters (see Constituted object) but can laugh it off, too (Das Ding Dong). A series of smaller works at the back of the gallery momentarily inspires Bataille’s Story of the Eye but Johnson dispels such risqué associations with another run of prosaic captions.

This is the work of a mind that, having needlessly spent years in analysis, became hooked on ennui. Or, just as likely, of an artist who wasted her studio time misreading Lacan to the detriment of her praxis. The unescapable result are these dull, if technically proficient, paintings of boredom made for dull eyes. Their lack, in turn, is profound.


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

Vlatka Horvat, The Croatian Pavilion in Venice ★★☆☆☆

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This closed circulation project speaks to and agrees with only itself.

Pauline Boty at Gazelli Art House ★★★★☆

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This exhibition mixes the woman and her legend, but without the air of mystery she enjoyed during her lifetime.

Bruno Zhu, License to Live at Chisenhale ★☆☆☆☆

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Faced with so little, one longs for an even emptier room.

Divine Southgate-Smith, Navigator at Nicoletti ★☆☆☆☆

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It is too late to save the regime, yet too early to mourn it.

Leonardo Drew, Ubiquity II at South London Gallery ★★☆☆☆

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There are many ways to misunderstand entropy.

David Muenzer, Teen at Final Hot Desert ★★★☆☆

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Muenzer’s messy show bedroom actually is someone’s messy bedroom most nights of the week.

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