Will Gabaldón

Flicker

★★★☆☆

On until 9 November 2024

Gabaldón reinvents the pastoral for the Instagram generation. A dozen of his compact, square, and near-monochrome oil landscapes punctuate the gallery’s walls. Examining them in the round, one loses track of where the sequence began as though it were an infinite scroll. Two runs around, however, and the painter’s trick becomes clear: his colour palettes are presets, the paint’s texture optimised by algorithmic trial and error. Even the tree forms come from a 3D object catalogue.

These features are distillates of Impressionism’s rarest forms and Gabaldón has emerald and gold at his disposal. Yet his pictures insist that they owe art history little and the charade is for nothing. This trick just about works in its intended medium (@willgabaldon), less so in the gallery. 


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

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★☆☆☆☆

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Tacita Dean: Black, Green, Green and White at Frith Street Gallery ★☆☆☆☆

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★☆☆☆☆

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★★☆☆☆

The impulse at play is that repetition makes up for an idea by sheer volume. It doesn’t.

George Rouy: REPRISE at Hannah Barry ★★★☆☆

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