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Charlotte Fox at Moosey, Hoxton, Ra Tack and Florence Peake at IMT – Time is flying, things are neglected, art shows, art, other people’s art, my art, there’s probably a cat called Art somewhere? Not enough time but if someone doesn’t do it then did it even happen? if a painting should fall over in a wood and no one recorded the event? Does any of this art ever happen? East London’s galleries come and go, East London’s artists come and go even quicker, prolific for a couple of years and then they seemingly just give up or run out of steam, beaten down by the system, the gatekeepers. And all these photos taken and notes scribbled about recent shows that really should be pulled together, all on bits of (electronic) paper and waiting to be turned into posts of reviews or at least signposts pointing at the shows that no one else will record. A week last Thursday now, at least i think it was a week last Thursday, it was back along East London’s Hackney Road to Moosey’s still relatively new space and then a double back to to the long standing if somewhat elusive IMT gallery, a rather strange space that hides itself by the chemist on Cambridge Heath Road. Two openings, two shows, both painterly and both happening right now (assuming you are reading this now and not sometimes in the future, we see from the stats that pages from way back in time are regularly visited).

Charlotte Fox’s Reflection In A Dark Room is on at Moosey’s Hoxton space now and runs until 24th September 2023 –  And as we said in the preview a couple of weeks back, things have been flowing rather well as Moosey’s new space at the Hoxton end of the Hackney Road. There’s a different crowd at Moosey’s events, I don’t ever see any the usual opening night Private View faces, almost as if no one wants to step outside their own comfort zone, all these different art tribes only ever going to their own events where their own crowd will be drinking the cheap red wine or the slightly cold mostly warm cheapest bottled beer. Opening night at Moosey is as respectfully busy as it always is, I like that they never overcrowd their walls, the hangs at this concrete space at the foot of a new build are generally basic, the new one the same as the last one, so far Moosey’s Hoxton space has been more than decent.the shows d ofeel the same every time, almost as if they use the same nails left from the last show but that’s not bad thing is it?    

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Charlotte Fox is a twenty-something painter, she currently lives and works in New York. Working predominantly with oil, Charlotte’s work “explores experiences of repulsion and desire through the lens of fantasy and fragmented or fictionalised self-narrative”, it feels almost but not quite playful, it feels bold, it feels confident, Charlotte Fox is not just politely hanging paintings on a white wall and hoping someone will look, there’s more that that here, not quite a demand,but there is a strength to her work already. Her process uses several visual references such as personal photography, vintage porn and old films and cartoons, references that are later digitally collaged together before being painted in oil and it is crucial that they are painted, it would be easy to show us the digital collage, but that decision made with every loaded brush stroke, the commitment, that is vital he

“Taking a voyeuristic approach to understanding one’s own internal fantasy world and history of what compels or repels them- the paintings are pieces of storytelling but not the full story, and perhaps not even a true story. Through hiding or concealing the ‘rest’ of the story there is a transference or even an avoidance in investigating what attracts and what repulses…”

There’s bits here, body bits, bits here, hints there, am I reading this right? Have we got the right end of the stick, bit of bodies? warped forms? Love? Lust? vulnerability? Engaging? Sexual exploration? Strange places, spaces, interiors, inside out? Glimpses detached from any anchored setting or substantial landscape. “I like to think of them as pockets of lost memories or false dreams that can’t or won’t be fully remembered.” says the artist. They are pieces that hold your attention, demand a little more of you the viewer. Still not sure if I’m reading her paintings right? Then again, did anyone say they was a right way? if they were my paintings i would say there was no right or wrong way to read them but then again.. Things distilled? It feels positive, a search for the good rather than the bad or the ugly. I kind of like these paintings, there’s something about them, not entirely sure what, but there is an intrigue, it is almost quietly voyeuristic to stand here with the background chatter of the socialising opening night crowd and the music and their attention mostly not being paid to the paint, there’s something quite private in that act of looking.. 

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Meanwhile, back down the Hackney Road, past the much hyped but hardly ever open Sherbet Green Gallery, past that rather dated 90’s flavoured industrial estate where Mexican painter Horacio Quiroz’s show has just ended the almost always rewarding Annka Kultys Gallery back to the Bethnal Green end of the Hackney Road and and just a little bit up Cambridge Heath Road where Ra Tack is back at IMT, this time with Florence Peake and something about making sense of the world or exploring tension or something like that? A two person show, not sure if the conversations are working, the conversations between the two artists, the conversations with us the viewers.

“Both Tack and Peake’s works deal in the bodily, the embodied, the material. Stretching how these terms are interpreted, both Tack and Peake approach issues of placement and rootedness in different ways – they allow us to question where we are and how we interact” so we’re told, I’m not sure the art is really speaking, this is not the first time we’ve encountered Ra Tack in this space, I’m not really finding the poetry here, Peake, so the printed show statement tells us, has spoken about how she “investigate[s] the ontology of objects, beings, humans, and encounters in the world” and these words could encompass the entire presentation. It all very wordy, long explanations, that dancing around the architecture thing again, statements rather than work on the wall or floor that does most of the the communicating. Maybe it needs another look without the clutter of an opening night performance, without the musical equipment and the bodies in the way, maybe it needs a second look to find that feeling? That interaction that’s talked of? Maybe?  (sw)    

IMT is at Unit 2, 210 Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green, London, E2 9NQ. The space is open Thursdays through to Sundays, Midday until 6pm. The gallery is next door to the Chemist, don’t let te strange numbering system on the road fool you into walking past on the other side.

Moosey Hoxton is at The Shoreditch Exchange, Hackney Road, London E2 8GY, The gallery is open Thursday through to Sunday, 11am until 5pm. The show runs until September 23rd.

Previously on these pages – ORGAN THING: Damien Cifielli’s slightly strange, rather painterly tales of Tarogramma at Moosey Hoxton…

As always, fo click ona nimage t osee the wholething or to run the slide show…