Houldsworth’s programme doesn’t get the recognition it may deserve, perhaps because so much of it looks ‘outsider’ as a matter of branding. Nakahara’s mix of studied naïveté and accidental surrealism is a case in point. Biblical floods, the comet’s fall, and the odd tsunami mercilessly toss his protagonists about before the painter makes for them a life raft of cherry blossom. The canvases, small enough to protest innocence, are disarming enough. Their sculptural companions, like the pair of child lovers in a birdcage, turn sickly ‘cute’ like a Labubu. They speak over the wind’s rush with childlike ennui of an artist making work solely for himself.
Maso Nakahara Floating Through Time
Maso Nakahara
Floating Through Time
★★★★☆
On until 4 October 2025
notes and notices are short and curt exhibition reviews. Read more:
Will Gabaldón
Will Gabaldón
Flicker
★★★☆☆
Gabaldón reinvents the pastoral for the Instagram generation.
Sophie Huckfield
Sophie Huckfield
Lady Ludd
★★☆☆☆
Huckfield crowbars made-up heroes into past revolutions to pose as the saviour in the next one.
Sin Wei Kin
Sin Wei Kin
Portraits
★★☆☆☆
This exhibition combines the most vulgar of all art school tropes: juvenile narcissism, NFT kitsch, and mindless referentialism.
Xie Nanxing
Xie Nanxing
Hello, Portrait!
★★★★☆
Looking at Xie’s portraits is a little like wearing a virtual reality headset over only one eye.
Dan Guthrie
Dan Guthrie
Empty Alcove / Rotting Figure
★★☆☆☆
The problem for a culture built on iconoclasm is that eventually, it will need to create images of its own. Guthrie is yet to consider this because his image war is still virtual. The subject of his static video installation,…
Sula Bermúdez-Silverman
Sula Bermúdez-Silverman
Bad Luck Rock
★★☆☆☆
This is a poor man’s version of history or a philistine collector’s absolution.
