So the cat thing, Purrsistance, happened over in Catford, of course he had to do one in Catford, the latest in a series of cat flavoured art exhibitions curated by self-confessed Stuckist Donald Takeshita-Guy. “You can’t be an artist if you don’t paint cats” so says Donald as he promised “paintings of big and small cats by Stuckists, paintings of big and small cats by people who were Stuckists but aren’t any more, paintings of big and small cats by people who’d like to be Stuckists but aren’t yet, and painting of big and small cats by people who will never ever be Stuckists but still like painting cats”. There’s been several cat shows now and Donald himself is well on the way to painting a thousand cats paintings, he started his cat movement in 2017.
Purrsistance, Painting Cats, Carton Exhibition Space, Catford, it happened in the first week of March, out in the yard of the rather colourful, street art covered Ninth Life Pub over in Catford, South East London. The exhibition space is out back of the pub, in the very colourful yard, the beer garden, in a rather plush shipping container converted and fitted out as a well lit white-walled gallery, and impressive space and place for art actually, an excellent three cat-filled days (although we didn’t see a pub cat when we went, surely there is one?). We were told to expect paintings of cats from the artists taking part include Donald Takeshita-Guy, Yumi Takeshita-Guy, Charles Thomson, Eamon Everall, Sean Worrall, Emma Harvey, Wolf Howard, Jasmine Surreal, Mark D, Matt King, Jaqui Yebra, Laura Erviti (and yes this is me reviewing a show I was taking part in yet again, for the record I though my painting was by far the worst in the show, really not impressed with my effort, can we do it all again please?).
So a white-walled gallery in a shipping container and a very well curated well hung exhibition knitted together by the catty nature of the subject matter. Actually the fact that these are all drawings and paintings of cats united rather well a show that could so easily have felt rather fractured. There’s some fine pieces here, some of the original Stuckists, Wolf Howard’s cat with the wood pigeon is a delight, there’s a couple of excellent Charles Thompson paintings, one with his familiar black outline, the other a beautifully bright piece without, quite a contrast to Laura Erviti ‘s rather warm “Inner Jungle” or Emma Harvey’s rather fierce “Pussy Riot”. Donald’s own paintings are full of positively charged energy, do like the way his thousand cats are coming together. Donald’s partner Yumi Takeshita-Guy had some delightful pieces hanging, delightfully a strong, delightfully delicate. The whole show is rather good, the whole flow, well besides my own piece, I apologise for my cat,thanksfully it didn’t disrupt the flow. The whole ongoing idea is rather good, cats are great, the space is great, the whole thing feels good, a well curated visual cat-nip of a show, a fun show, not a throwaway show, it would be easy to make that mistake in terms of a show like this, this is not a throwaway show.
We like cats, as someone once said “cats is cool things”. A fine show indeed, sorry I let the side down, excellent show, excellent space, purrsistance indeed, bring on the next one, got to love what Donald is doing. (sw)
Do, as always, click on an image to enlarge or to run the fractured slide show
THE ORGAN 