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★☆☆☆☆

On until 6 January 2024

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:

Cynthia Hawkins: Maps Necessary for a Walk in 4D: Chapter 4 at Hollybush Gardens

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★★★☆☆

Hawkins’s paint reveals that her studio was no crime scene.

Marina Xenofontos, Public Domain at Camden Art Centre ★★★☆☆

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★★★☆☆

There’s an unfortunate ‘emerging artist’ vibe to this handful of readymade sculptures.

Yuki Nakayama, After the Rain at A.I. Gallery ★☆☆☆☆

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★☆☆☆☆

Can an installation be too site-specific?

Merike Estna: The House of Leaking Sky at the Estonian pavilion, Venice ★★☆☆☆

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★★☆☆☆

A racket not useful for sport.

Richard Hunt, Metamorphosis at White Cube ★★★★★

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★★★★★

A dictionary for self-determination written in phrases as they were being invented.

Machine Painting at Modern Art ★★★★☆

★★★★☆

Ask DALL-E to paint an abstraction and it’ll confidently produce a museum-worthy clone

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