Tamara Henderson

Green in the Grooves

★★★★☆

On until 30 December 2023

Having spent years tending to her garden in Australia, Henderson built a utopian version of it in Camden. There are imaginary plants and imaginary creatures everywhere. Some, like a sound installation of earthworms, may be real and alive. An army of scarecrow gardeners watches over this plot.

All is tranquil and whimsical until even the gallery gives way to decay. Things fall apart, elegantly. In three ornately framed paintings, a quartet of frogs become consumed by abstraction. Bronze and clay creatures emerge from dirt heaps to be absorbed by them again. In a sure sign of the end times, the plants have eyes. But to bring solace, a blissfully plotless film tracks the growth and decline of Henderson’s backyard, revealing that these cycles are one.

Dust to dust, joy to joy. The whole thing feels like a remake of Wind in the Willows directed by a garden gnome. But this gnome is one of Henderson’s accomplices, too. The show only falters when it brings the ‘creative process’ wholesale into the gallery. Ironically, this is the exhibition’s stated aim. One room hosts a quirky greenhouse studio filled with doodles and trinkets. This structure unduly protects the artist from nature’s graceful cruelty.


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

SACCADES, Leo Arnold with Jo Baer at Brunette Coleman ★★★★☆

Leo Arnold with Jo Baer

SACCADES

★★★★☆

One dare not ask for more.

Xie Nanxing, Hello, Portrait! at Thomas Dane ★★★★☆

Xie Nanxing

Hello, Portrait!

★★★★☆

Looking at Xie’s portraits is a little like wearing a virtual reality headset over only one eye.

Diego Marcon, Dolle at Sadie Coles HQ ★★★☆☆

Diego Marcon

Dolle

★★★☆☆

Idle work became indistinguishable from leisure, vegetative time-passing from family life.

Trackie McLeod, FRUIT II at The Bomb Factory ★★☆☆☆

Trackie McLeod

FRUIT II

★★☆☆☆

“Working-class” and “queer” appear in the collateral as obligatory. What doesn’t is “white”.

Sosa Joseph, Pennungal at David Zwirner ★★★★★

Sosa Joseph

Pennungal: Lives of women and girls

★★★★★

The night, finally, recognises despair and witnesses infanticide.”

Klara Lidén, Square Moon at Sadie Coles ★★☆☆☆

Klara Lidén

Square Moon

Advanced Views (view_65875b3a6405b) template: Can't write template file

This isn’t Times Square in a blackout.

×