Mark Nader, Crystalline Candy Clouds at IMT, Bethnal Green, London – There a delight or two here with the cakes and the biscuits and the doughnut flavoured colour and yes those paintings do have a touch of the dancing around the maypole about them, whoever said that was right, there is something delightfully English, something a little Alice in Wonderland, something a little wicked this way comes as well?  An undercurrent maybe?

– “In front of Mark Nader’s work, you find yourself in a busy maypole dance cum picnic, propagated with familiar, yet unusual artefacts. You have been transported into an alternate present, one in which past and present cultures are interwoven.

A touch of the Oast house, of old English towns in the summer, the gathering of hops, the natural goodness but then there’s all the sugar and the icing and the hyperactive E numbers and too much orange juice amidst the ribbons and the paper plates. Paintings, sculpture, fancy cake colour, a Mr Kipling Apple Pie, an apple pie that “seems to have taken a fancy. Brazenly leaning in, our faces meld together… pulling away I take some of the Kipling with me. Sweet pastry still in my mouth, I blurt out with chunks of apple, ‘that was an exceedingly good kiss’.”

I like this, I like the Iced Party Ring shouting, ‘Food fight!’ and what was that about the Scone? What is going on in Mark Nader’s world, what is going on here? Too many E numbers? Feed your head? I like these paintings, I like the sculpture in the middle of the small gallery, I almost want to say this is fun but that’s way too cakes-from-the-supermarket throwaway… (sw)

MT is at Unit 2, 210 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 9NQ. The Mark Nader show runs until 14th August 2022. The space is open Thursdays through to Sundays, Midday until 6pm.

As always, do click on an image to see the whole things and to run the slideshow