From Andrew Frost…
It’s that time again – the end of year season of group shows and fundraisers. But it’s also a time for reflection on the year just passed. What did we learn? Where to now? As if to answer those sorts of existential questions Darren Knight is staging a petite group show of work by gallery artists under the fetching title Love Hurts where each artist offers an individual take on the big, big questions.
Joanna Braithwaite‘s painting series Mixed Doubles [2014] matches up various animals in dancing poses – two leopards doing the tango, a couple of horses doing a slow dance, a duo of dogs likewise – as if to say, hey, if these animals can’t get along, why can’t humans? Patrick Hartigan‘s painting of a cassette Reading [2014] isn’t an image of obsolete technology but rather an urgent message to savour the things of the past that still matter [like that mix tape you made for a girl once/got given to you by some guy], while Michelle Nikou‘s weird, illuminated orbs teach us to fear unknown orbs. Ditto Mark Hilton‘s Oogabooga [2014]. The lesson of Noel McKenna‘s painting of the stats on racehorse Black Caviar is a salient lesson in not setting our hopes too high lest they be dashed by cruel reality, while Jon Campbell‘s Love Hurts tells us exactly that. To sign off another of Campbell’s pictures demands – What the Fuck are You Looking At? Answer: a painting. Merry Christmas everyone!
Until December 20
Darren Knight Gallery, Waterloo
Pic: Jon Campbell, Love hurts, 2014. 3 colour lithograph on Magnani White Prescia 300gsm, Ed.20
56 x 76 cm.
